St Nicholas

Last night driving, Monte and me saw Mr and Mrs Santa Claus on a motorcycle in busy downtown Evergreen. I remembered reading that this was the night children could come see Santa. And then the other day at the Post Office, the postal worker was directing a mom and her kids to a box in the foyer for letters to Santa that went directly to the North Pole.

I've talked on my "Cycle of Celebrations" stuff across the country for quite some years now. I take a filled Christmas stocking along as a visual aid. I talk about the value of story and that the Bible mentions remembering the stories ... "tell the children ... that the grandchildren will know ... pass it on" ... over 300+ times. I researched Christian holidays, Jewish festivals, and then on to Saint Days.

I did not grow up with much of this and thought saint stuff was just Catholic. But it's all a part of church history. We have the Old and the New Testaments with their stories, and then what I call the Third Testament, carries on the stories. The apostle Paul refers to all of us believers as saints.

The Church for years started putting these stories on the Calendar. The dates are the people's death days - thus thought to be their Heaven birth dates. When Protestantism took off they threw out the calendar, as they did with so much (you know, the 'baby out with the bathwater' phrase).

As a result, since the St Nicholas story was not told for many generations, we end up with Santa Claus along with Jesus on Christmas. Instead, on December 6, we put up socks and fill them with stuff that reminds us of the real St Nicholas story and celebrate. We don't have to fear all the Santa stuff, just feel sad about the missing pieces of the whole story.

St Nicholas was a real person from present-day Turkey (288-354). He had lived through much persecution as a Christian and lived to see Christianity become the empire religion under Constantine. It's rumored he was at the Council of Nicea, where he was condemning the heresy of Arianism (not believing in the deity of Jesus). It's also said he slapped the heretic Arius.

There's SO many stories surrounding St Nicholas. The one he's most noted for is him throwing coins in a window, landing in socks hanging to dry, of a family who lost everything and the girls were going to give themselves to prostitution to make money. Nicholas employed people to make wooden toys to give away, and food - like ginger cookies, and even gave gifts of clothing. So these are things we put in the stockings: chocolate candy coins, ginger cookies, fruit, mittens or socks, and something wooden. So I'm always on the lookout for wooden toys and the candy coins. As Heather got older, I gave her wooden kitchen tools.

There's lots of silly stories (hagiography) ... but who knows. In those days people had eyes to see miracles. Do we look for miracles in our everyday - like God 'winks'? People used to wake up and say, "This is so-and-so's day" and remember their stories. If God was there for them, then he's here for us too. We wake up and it's just another Monday, or Friday, or Sunday. Our calendar days could be rich with stories - a Story Calendar.

Many saint stories are wild. Like maybe close to being heretics walking the edge over a precipice. But they are humans who hear the Gospel and walk it uniquely for their place and time. If not for them we'd not have much learning and healing institutions and inner city care. We'd not have kings, rulers, and church leadership hearing the Truth.

So use this day to celebrate and tell the real story of Santa Claus (who the Dutch brought to our country and it grew from there). Then the rest of December when people ask, "did you tell Santa what you want?" we can say, "his name is St Nicholas, and he's already been to our house". Then he's separated from Jesus.

Some have said, "I'm not going to tell my kids about Santa, cuz then they'll think Jesus is a myth too." Well I heard of a 10 year old telling college kids that he knew about Santa Claus, like he knew about elves, the easter bunny, and other pretend things. "I never got him mixed up with Jesus because I could tell from the way my parents talked and acted all year long that Jesus was true."

One year when we lived in Tucson, Monte took ashes from the fireplace and drew ash footprints coming out into the living room. We had left milk and cookies for Santa. At 31 and 29, I don't think Heather and Travis are psychologically crippled. Actually their sense of wonder (next to worship) is alive and well. Memories are the library of the soul.

Enjoy the cute books. I found that JRR Tolkien had written Father Christmas letters to his kids, and all his illustrations along with the 20 some years of letters are all in a fun book: Father Christmas Letters.

Sing the song "You better watch out ..." and then talk about the message of 'naughty or nice'. Because in Jesus, God gives salvation and adoption into the trinity family as a gift. We do not earn it.

"The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic His giving, by grace, through faith, and this not of ourselves," said Nicholas.

"We who still enjoy fairy tales have less reason to wish actual childhood back. We have kept its pleasures and added some grown-up ones as well." - CSLewis

"Come to me as a child," says Jesus.

Advent Basket Day 5

You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope.

With less of you there is more of God ...

You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you.

Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God.

He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

You're blessed when you care.

At the moment of being 'care-full,' 

you find yourselves cared for.

You're blessed when you get your inside world - your mind and heart - put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperated instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.

You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom ... you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble. 

My Advent Basket Day 5 bag has a Smiley Face in it, and says to "read Matthew 5:1-12. Jesus told us how to be happy."

Do you hunger and thirst after God, His righteousness? which is in the middle of The Beatitudes? The first three: poor in spirit, grief (those who mourn), constraint (those who are meek), I see as life experiences that can recycle throughout life. But how many people work up an appetite for God?

Children are poor - totally dependent. As adults it's hard to ask for help or admit our neediness and depend on God. Today, we tend to dull or sedate grief, working hard to avoid it, and not processing it and dealing with it. As a child, meekness is having to brush my teeth and make my bed, growing into accountability in the workplace, marriage vows, disciplines - all helping to shape who we are.

Jesus didn't just preach at us, but acted it out himself, and gave himself. Jesus said, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full". "Follow Me."

Tapestry of Life

I was going to go to FoodNetwork and look at broccoli recipes since I have lots of broccoli from our farm share to use, and I got sidetracked ... I was remembering a tapestry poem I read years ago, that I probably have filed away, but I've not organized my files yet since I've moved everything around. I ended up Googling "tapestry poem" instead.

I also downloaded the pictures off my camera from a recent felting picture I did and hung at church last night. So I'll post the picture's stages: from the layering colors of sheep wool which I cover and pour hot soapy water over and agitate, to felt ... to the finished framed picture.

Here's the Tapestry poem I was remembering. Apparently Corrie Ten Boom (my Grandmother got to talk to her - and in Dutch!) used to say this poem as she spoke around the world. (And why am I thinking of tapestry? Cuz that's the textile art I'm returning to, having sold my large weaving loom and found the tapestry loom I want posted on Craigslist on Thanksgiving Day.)

My life is but a weaving between my God and me,
I do not choose the colors; He works so steadily.
Oft times He weaves in sorrow, and I in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper, and me the underside.
Not till the loom is silent, and the shuttles cease to fly,
Will God unroll the canvas, and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful in the weavers skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.

The poem was read at my weaving mentor's funeral after her sudden death when scuba-diving (she was in her 80's) on vacation with her husband. One story told of her: during the war (and she continued for other needs too) she'd unravel knit things and reknit sweaters and socks.

And another poem I found when searching by a Debbie Milam -
When we embrace the many parts of our experience we discover a magnificent creation.

Every moment is but a thread, a thread of consciousness embracing the very essence of life.

Some threads are brilliant and dazzling while others are tattered and torn.

When looked upon in isolation the tattered threads look inferior.

Yet when woven together by the wondrous hands of the creator the light magically blends with the dark.

As joy coalesces with pain God creates the magnificent tapestry that is life.

Monte came in from his office and just whipped up something for our supper using the broccoli! And is saying, "Time to eat".

St Barbara

St Barbara

Dec 4 is Saint Barbara's day. What I remember most about her day is that if you cut pussy willow branches (and the like) and put them in water on her day, they'd be budding by Christmas. 

Her story does read like a Fairy Tale though - supposedly beautiful and kind, but her jealous father kept her in a tower, where she became a Christian. Did she let down her hair and escape? No, but her father drug her by her hair to be executed. A mighty clap of thunder was heard and a lightening bolt reduced him to ashes. She lived and died around 300AD.

Advent Basket Day 4

Once I get out my Christmas box of decor, I'll take a picture of my Advent Basket. Like a recent Prairie Home Companion Lake Wobegon story character, I'm reluctant to decorate for Christmas. Monte's leaving town for Norway in a week, not returning till the 21st, and we go to Travis and Sarah's for Christmas Eve, making our traditional meal there, and coming home Christmas morning. I am going to be reacquainting myself with tapestry weaving during that time as well as Adventing. BUT, Dawson will be on school break soon, and I'm sure there's going to be lots of young people hanging around. AND besides, I do like Christmas tree lights - peaceful evenings in the dark with the wood stove crackling. So this weekend I'll probably have Dawson find a smallish, mainly skinny tree (we have a lot of these around on our property)(not a Charlie Brown tree - boy has that become a phrase for literacy - we all know, picture, exactly what it means! I'd pull out that video, but don't think our VCR works.) 

Okay, okay ... Day 4's Advent bag has already burnt birthday candles in it, saying, "We use these when celebrating birthdays. They make light. Read Matthew 5:14-16."

Visual artist me loves the way Eugene Peterson words it: "You're to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept...If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you?...Shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives..."

Birthday - I am rebirthed in Jesus. "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound/ That saved a wretch like me/ I once was lost, but now am found/ was blind but now I see ..." I was thinking on how Jesus heals, and my response of gratitude, now that I'm found and can see: Oh that I DO be a light-bearer God, that others may see, and hunger and thirst after You.

I was also pondering Vincent Van Gogh's life, reflected in his art. When he didn't do his art, he was not sane, he was in darkness. Van Gogh felt sent of God to be a missionary amongst the peasants. Many of his sketches and paintings are of people in mining camps or working in the fields ... But he had a falling out with his denomination, in giving all his possessions to the poor. He felt abandoned by the church. If you look at two of his famous paintings: Starry Night and the Church at Auvers, there is no life/light shining from the church windows.

Open the eyes of our heart Lord; help us see ... help me, on my hill, shine my light ... This little light of mine ... help me, show me, how to be generous with my life. Be my mouth, hands, and feet.

World Vision

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Saint Days

This is something I wrote last year on this blog for current dates on the church calendar:

I've not posted of some saints that I remember only for some fun little something that their story makes me think of...

Edmund Campion is Dec 1. He reminds me of the movie and book: The Scarlet Pimpernel (the BBC version is the best and closest to the book). Though born of a protestant printer-bookseller in London in 1540, he became a Jesuit and a secret agent for the Faith.

I love history. I love books. I've read stories where old homes in England had cubbyholes called "priest holes". Campion's story makes me literate to these priest holes.

With the introduction of Protestantism, some rulers were seeing possibilities of separating from the Pope. The Church ruled. Monarch Henry VIII was the first to start a new church. What happened for probably a century is that the religion followed the ruler. Differing beliefs could not coexist for quite some time. The last Catholic monarch of England is what history calls Bloody Mary, and her successor, protestant Good Queen Bess. Lots of deaths swinging from protestants killing Catholics and then vice-versa and back again.

Campion was in Elizabeth's reign and he was constantly changing his name and apparel. Like once he was disguised as a jewel merchant. He was the object of a year long manhunt, all the while ministering to catholics in hiding and publishing 'underground' pamphlets. Queen Elizabeth liked him and tried to dissuade him, making him offers. But he was the 1st of hundreds who were hanged, drawn, and quartered for adhering to their religious beliefs.

Dec 3rd is Francis Xavier's day. He was one of the original Jesuit's founded by Ignatius Loyola. (I've wanted to understand the differing monastic groups.) Xavier lived in the early 1500s and it amazes me that in 10 years he traveled 9,000 miles - a great feat in those days. He brought the Gospel to more than 50 kingdoms and baptized more than a million. The church he planted in Japan lasted three centuries without Bibles or priests - only word by parents passed on to children. He's remembered as the Apostle of the Indies.

Dec 4 is Saint Barbara's day. I don't remember her story because there was nothing in it I cared for for me. BUT I only remember her day because I read that if you cut pussy willow branches (and the like) and put them in water on her day, they'd be budding by Christmas.

Advent Basket Day 3

So, what's in Day 3 of my Advent Basket? 2 nails. Hmmmm ... are you thinking the scripture reading would have something to do with Jesus being hammered to the cross? No, yet yes. The slip of paper in the bag says, "Nails hold things together. Read Colossians 1:13-18. Who else can hold things together." (For kids, they shorten the passages, but I read to verse 23, keeping the context together.)

Christmas is a easy Holiday to celebrate. Babies are so easy to love and embrace. But we can't keep Jesus as a perpetual baby (or maybe that's where some people remain). Who wants to embrace a cross?!

I look at Jesus and am able to see God. I get to know Jesus' heart, and see God's motivation in creating everything, and see God's spacious heart as so enlarged to hold us all together! Because of Jesus' willingness to die on the cross, broken all/me is fixed and fit together.

The pictures are called Kissing the Face of God, Walking with God, and Father and Son.

Yes, I'm celebrating the baby Jesus. I'm celebrating that God chose to enter our history, coming as a baby birthed from a woman's womb, growing up through childhood, working alongside Joseph as a carpenter. Jesus called us friends and asks a response from us, a mutual give and take and give ...

Yes, God holds everything together; He holds the whole world in His hands. Advent reminds me of a pregnant creation. Birth pangs without and within waiting ... As waiting does not diminish a pregnant mother, nor are we. We are enlarged in the waiting. Anticipation ... joyful expectation ... for only God knows what!!!!

Advent Basket Day 2

Needlefelted "My Life's Journey"

My Advent Basket Day 2 bag miniature is a pop bottle of Coke. The little parchment paper says, "This can quench thirst" and says to read John 4:7-14. And then we talk about how Jesus can quench thirsts.

Rereading the story, I'm reminded of a piece of my own story. It's a time when Jesus showed up and audibly spoke to me!

I did a felted work I call "My Life's Journey". It's inspiration came following my sitting with Psalm 107 and 116. 

This is what I journaled -

I chose. I questioned. I bargained with God.

I turned my back on Him and wanted Him dead to me.

I wandered in the desert and dwelt in darkness.

I became sick and desired death.

I called out to God.

He got me out and put my feet on a wonderful road.

God received me back into His womb.

I was rebirthed in His image,

to the very origins of His being.

Another desert -

"Anyone who comes to me thirsts no more".

Set sail in big ships put out to sea.

Bottom dropped out and my soul melted in misery.

He quieted the wind to a whisper, led me to safety.

He led me out of my dark, dark cell.

I didn't wander away,

I was crying out to God!

Then I started drawing hearts -

Keep (heart) ... remember

Don't lose (heart)

I don't want to journey without my (heart)

(Heart's) desire is precious - guard it

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst

Return to your rest, O my soul.

I am standing in the Presence of God.

Alive in the land of the Living!

Reading and journaling is the way God usually speaks to me. But when did He audibly speak to me? It was a setting like in the classic Christian book Hinds Feet in High Places. The kids and me were traveling with Monte. The kids were playing in the back seat and Monte had parked the vehicle by the road-cut at the side of the road while off mapping and collecting rock samples - doing his geology.

I'd been in a depression. I could function in life, but felt I was barely floating above the surface of life, not feeling. I was looking at the dry dirt roadcut out the window and heard a trickle of water. Looking, I saw a small flower. That's when God spoke, reminding me that in His generosity, He gives fresh, living water - gushing living life!

So my Art piece has a stream of water flowing through it. It goes through the desert three times. The first time was a self-imposed desert. I decided the other two were God tapping me on the shoulder saying, "Hey, I want to give you more of Myself!" Then He led me out into the wild water. But if I don't retreat regularly to a calm harbor, I'd go crazy! 

Advent Basket Day 1

I haven't unpacked my Advent wreath or Advent basket yet, but my thoughts are there. We don't really have 'kids' at home anymore to be doing these with. But the 'kid' ME (and Monte) will still carry on traditions. It's just one of those things that help remind my heart. 

Over the years I've been attracted to all the Advent calendars, or things with drawers or doors, but most of them don't have a lot of meaningfulness. They're more like eating Cracker Jacks and seeing what the prize is (I saved the ones from my childhood - those were great prizes. They're in my Barbie case). So I made my own, maybe 25 years ago? I'm going to make more soon, so need to see if the same Hobby-craft store I found the miniatures at still is there and the same.

So which do you choose to do for Advent? A friend of mine years ago had bought an Advent thing at a craft show. I had her open each days gift bag and tell me what was in each and what was written. That's what I made my Advent Basket from. Later I bought a Jesse Tree booklet at a 2nd-hand store and we sometimes did stuff with it. And then a pastor friend had one that had things to learn - like the symbols representing the names of God...

The Jesse Tree idea is based on Isaiah 11:1 - a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. It begins from the Creation story, to Adam and Eve, the flood, to Abraham ... all the key Old Testament stories to the New Testament nativity story. It begins on November 27.

I'll lead you through my Advent Basket each day. We'd all pull out the calico bags tied closed with ric-rac, each days date was embroidered, and we'd feel them, trying to remember and guess what was in them. Over the years we had them memorized, and feeling them, would remember their story.

Keep your soul diligently, never forgetting what you've seen God doing, lest they (the stories) slip from your heart ... Deut 4:9

Today's bag has a quarter: 25 days till Christmas! We told the kids that there's 25 pennies in a quarter. We'd read Mark 12:41-44. We'd ask, "Who gave the best gift"?

Oh God, I desire to give extravagantly - giving my all!

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