Midlife Meditation

This never happened. Did I get your attention? Are you furious? Concerned about the state of my immortal soul? Listening for the crack of thunder as God smites me with a lightning bolt? Or are you feeling suddenly insecure, worried I may be about to cast doubt on some of the truths that keep you sane? Or are there things you've been seeing and hearing about all your life, but never explored, and you'd like some help figuring them out? If you answered yes to any of those questions: good. That's exactly where I want you to be. Because the story I'm about to tell you is one of the most significant in the history of Western civilization, and how you interpret it will absolutely determine how you live through the Trump Era. Let's start with the truth: roughly two millennia ago, a baby was born to a Jewish couple somewhere in the Middle East. They named him Yeshua, a fairly common name, and raised him in their home town of Nazareth. As an adult, he became a...

"I want an official Red Ryder carbine-action two hundred shot Range model BB gun!" "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" Which is what he did: Though, to be accurate, what Ralphie really hit the first time he fired his precious BB gun was his glasses. Had he not been wearing them, he would've had to change his nickname to Popeye. Now that I've refreshed your memory of this beloved holiday classic, I'm going to unveil my own personal heresy, likely to send many of you flying to your keyboards in protest: I really don't care for A Christmas Story. (In a further effort to forestall the outcry from the hordes of people for whom this is the BEST MOVIE EVER and how DARE I not like it, hey, haters gonna hate. If it's that important to you to know that everyone in the world shares your taste is questionable entertainment, STOP READING NOW, before your feelings can be hurt; and before you fill up my comment boxes with righteous indignation, ...

And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say - that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day. And then - the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of *ten* Grinches, plus two! I've been such a Grinch. The original purpose of this blog was to provide me with a platform for venting. Since leaving the ministry in January 2000, I'd been without a pulpit. After more than a decade of being able to say my piece in front of a captive audience at least weekly, I was now reduced to guest preaching, no more than monthly at first, eventually tapering off to not at all. I wrote occasional essays, submitted some for publication, and even made it onto the Oregonian 's op ed page twice (though the second one was only in their online edition). Even when I was guest preaching, I was doing my best to behave, tempering everything I had to say to keep it from shocking my listeners. So when, after thirteen years of bottling it ...

I'd like to believe I never really believed, but I know that's not the case. Like any child raised on the American Christmas tradition, I lived for this holiday. I delighted in every church, Scout, or school-sponsored party that featured an adult volunteer dressed as Santa, doling out goody bags, their disappointing contents (mostly peanuts, maybe a candy cane or two mixed in) offset by the understanding that this was just a foretaste of something much greater to come. At night, long after I should have been asleep, I heard the crinkle of wrapping paper as my parents prepared for the big day. Decorating the tree, Christmas carol sing-alongs were highlights, watching Charlie Brown, the Grinch, and Rudolph on our black-and-white TV, counting down on an Advent calendar, filling my nose with the aromas of holiday baking, gorging myself on fudge and divinity, until finally the longest agonizing day of the year arrived: Christmas Eve. If we had school that day--and I occasionally...

The purpose of this series of essays has been venting a lifetime of pent-up frustrations about how Christmas is celebrated. I've complained about Santa in the manger, carols during Advent, capitalist exploitation of a religious holiday, and my favorite rant of them all, harmonizing the Nativity stories of Matthew and Luke to put both wise men and shepherds in Bethlehem. It's been fun, and I'm probably not done yet; but this morning, home from school with a chest cold, I find myself wondering if maybe I haven't gone a little too far in my curmudgeonly grumbling. Because, quite honestly, Christmas has never been anything but a mash-up. One of the first "shocking" revelations one discovers when delving into the history of Christmas is that Jesus was, if one takes the gospel of Luke seriously, probably born in the spring or summer, because the shepherds were out in the fields with their flocks. (During the winter, they keep them in the barns at night, which...

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:   “A voice was heard in Ramah,      wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children;      she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:16-18)   Chances are that, even if you're a regular church goer, you've not heard this part of the Christmas story lately.   You probably know of it. It's appeared in a number of biopics of the life of Jesus. You've probably heard the expression "slaughter of the innocents" or "massacre of the innocents." And still, I doubt if you've heard a sermon preached on it.   I may be wrong. I, in fact, preached several sermons on this text during my ye...

Oh, how I hate Christmas.   I came to this realization a little over a week ago at Costco. Amy and I had stopped in to stock up on a few things--which, of course, wound up being quite a few more things by the time we were done. Early in our shopping odyssey, I became aware of the Christmas decoration section. I was curious what might be there, so we directed our cart down that aisle. There I beheld garish tinsel-fringed and sparkle-encrusted stars, trees, reindeer, Santas; lights that would turn a UFO green with envy; inflatable snowmen (because we really don't get the chance to make the real ones here in the Northwest); and on and on until I turned to Amy and said these words: "I hate Christmas."   As I've observed before, I have not always had this attitude toward the holiday. As a child, I was quite taken with all the foofaraw: the brilliance and aroma of the tree, the letter to Santa, the smells coming from the kitchen, the sleeplessness of Christmas Ev...

Let's play Highlights Magazine! How many errors can you spot in this picture? Have you made your list? Good, because here I go: 1. Mary is blonde! 2. Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the shepherds, and two of the wise men are white! 3. The other wise man appears to be of African descent! 4. Jesus is getting a Faberge egg for his birthday! 5. The wise men and the shepherds are there at the same time! I'm cutting it off right there, because the last is what this post is really about. But before I tackle it, I will quickly take on the first three errors, all of which are grounded in the anti-Semitic movement of the nineteenth century, which sought to bleach Jesus' complexion to make him more acceptable to the world-dominating Europeans who also used the Bible to justify slavery, colonization, and social Darwinism. Caucasians ruled the world because we were destined by both God and nature to do so; which meant the foundational stories of the Bible had to be retrofitted w...