(Ten points if you can guess the Christmas special from which the title is stolen!)
Baby, it's cold outside.
Yesterday, we were wearing shorts.
Welcome to Texas!
When the weather gets this warm in December around here, it doesn't look or feel very Christmas-y. Christmas decorations look as though they've been hanging on houses for months because it feels more like May than December. Hearing Christmas music when it's this warm outside feels out-of-place; shouldn't the sounds of summer be playing instead? I've been dreaming of a white Christmas for the past 28 years, or since we stopped going to Chicago every year to visit Gramma at Christmas. Every year I keep hoping, and every year brings no snow. Oh well, this is Arlington after all.
Still, when it gets this warm, everything just looks the same, like any other month, like any other day.
Kinda like the scenario into which Jesus was born, I suppose.
(Really, if we wanted to be COMPLETELY literal (and silly), we should be celebrating Christmas on April 15, since it was tax-time when Mary & Joseph made the journey to Bethlehem to give birth to their little Tax Write-Off. I'm not positive the IRS existed back then, but I know they tend to be retroactive, so you can't be too careful)
This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. My mom used to sing that to us when we were little. Drove me nuts then, but I appreciate it so much more now, especially when it's this warm and this close to Christmas. It's still beautiful outside. If I'm letting the weather dictate my Christmas mood, then I'm definitely missing something. There are times during the Christmas season, especially when I'm driving home from work, that I wonder if another humdrum day could pass with something enormous, incredible, and spectacular like the birth of Jesus, and I'd miss the beauty of the moment because I was concerned with the humdrum. That seems to be the definition of life lately: the act of focusing on the ordinary at the expense of the extraordinary. Think of all the people who missed out on the birth of Christ because it was just another day to them (and us).
Lord, open my eyes to the beauty of the day, and let not my heart be overtaken by the creeping malaise* of ordinary everyday life.
In Him and around the corner (*and awarding 100 points to anyone who knows what song those two words are from),
Al
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3 comments:
Is it "Dogs" by Pink Floyd?? I hope so, I want my 100 points!!!
100 points for Mark! I didn't think anyone else had that album, much less made it to that last verse!
Al, it is easy to get caught up in the humdrum, and to be totally encompassed by it. Gaylene calls that being part of the storm instead of being in the eye of the storm.
I would offer you the outlook that every breath we take is a gift from God. What would happen if He decided to remove air from the earth? How long would any of us survive? We can live for weeks without food, days without water, but mere moments without air. To me, when we realize how much our very existence relies on His gift to us, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. We begin to see the things around us differently and respond to them out of gratitude to God.
We take so much for granted. I don’t want to be morbid, but consider how would you be looking at this season if you knew it would be the last one you would get to spend with your family? How much more time would you spend focused on them instead of yourself? What thoughts would you want to plant in their minds to help them understand what you understand, that time is precious? How humdrum would each day be then?
Take joy in your journey, my friend, and spend your time on this earth wisely. Bruce
Preach Christ every day . . . if necessary, use words.
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