all i want for CHRISTmas is ….

santa visited noah’s class today and did what santa does best – he asked the boys and girls what they would like him to bring them for CHRISTmas. my seven year old son could only think of one thing to say when asked this question. what did he ask for? what was the only thing on his mind? when noah opened his mouth the words that came out were, “i want a really cool keychain for CHRISTmas.”

why does a seven year old need a “really cool keychain”? even if he really needed a keychain what would make this item rate so high that it would be the only thing that he would mention?

i don’t have the slightest idea.

an unwed, pregant teenage girl

i just ran across ben bell’s CHRISTmas card for his church’s congregation and i think it is amazing. in my opinion it really conveys what CHRISTmas must have been like. mary would have been view by the powerful people of her time as just another insignificant statistic and an indicator of why the hebrew race was below them. they would not have viewed her pregnancy as anything of importance. they would not have cared at all what was happening with her, joseph, or her unborn child.

you know that joseph and mary would have had to have been scared to death and confused by GOD’s plan. of course, the incarnation freaks all of us out so it should have done the same thing to the first two humans to experience. “GOD with us” is a scary concept. “GOD for us” would be so much easier for us to handle. then we would just have a power that was helping us do the things we wanted to do. “GOD with us”, the incarnation, means relating with GOD, HE becomes a part of our lives and we become a part of HIS.

the incarnation scares the crap out of me. truthfully GOD scares the crap out of me. HE is so completely “other” and mysterious. HE is someone that i can not define and i can not control. yet, i am constantly drawn to HIS “otherness”. i long to be engulfed by HIS mystery and experience the fear that “otherness” produces. this is why HE is the answer to life.

vacation

as i told you yesterday i have taken some vacation time in order to finish some work around the house – specifically finishing our kitchen. thus far i have

  • painted three ceiling (more touch up than full coverage)
  • taken the kitchen cabinets apart
  • sanded the kitchen cabinets
  • primed the kitchen cabinets
  • put the first coat of paint on the kitchen cabinets (but not the doors yet)
  • cut out spots in two doors for punched tin to go into

by the time all of this ends i am going to need a vacation from my vacation.

i have discovered one thing already while doing all of this work. what i have discovered is that the part of the cabinet that will be most difficult to paint will also be the part that is most easily seen if you miss it. i have never actually noticed the baseboard of my cabinets. they have never semedn that important to me before. when i was priming the cabinets today i decided that since it is so difficult to get to the baseboards of the cabinet (they drop back 2 1/2 inches behind the actual cabinets) i would just give them just a basic no frills priming job. after i finished priming the cabinets i stopped to eat some lunch. of course, it was right in the middle of my meal while i was walking into the kitchen to get something to drink that i noticed these blaring missed spots shouting out at me “hey look at us! you did a lousy job on us!” it was the baseboard glaring at me, making me feel guilty for a poor job. so, i had to go back and prime the baseboards again. nobody will ever notice these thigns but if i had left them alone everyone would have commented on the crudy job i did on the baseboards.