Hands

Last night as Stefani and I were at the Ohio Valley Mall finishing up our shopping for mommy, suddenly her hand slipped into mine.  I looked down at this beautiful gift from God and told her the story of how we taught her to hold mommy and daddy's hands when she was just a toddler.  I would at first say the word, hands, and placed her hand into mine.  When this had been done for a while, it became normal to put my hand down beside me and soon find a tiny hand in mine.  So, as we walked in the mall, daddy and daughter walked hand in hand as if it was the most natural thing in our life. 

I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands Psalm 63:4

We now attend a non-denominational church, but from a baptist background, the raising of hands was not done in public worship.  I have since learned God desires his children to raise their hands toward him in prayer AND worship.  Just as a small child raises his/her hands to be picked up, God's children may assume the same posture.  Also as a child of God's I want to place my hands purposefully into his as a sign of submission and obedience.  This is neither a harsh submission nor a mandatory obedience, but one derived from the love I have for him because of the greater love he has for me. 

Jesus told his disciples to follow him and at times called them teknia, or little children.  I like the image of being a teknia of Jesus.  It is not the word used for a baby or newborn, but the word for a child under training.  I like the thought of placing my hand into his.  Stefani would at times take my hand to examine it.  She looked at my rings (wedding band and seminary class ring), my fingernails, or the hair on the back of them.  Why not?  She was placing hers in mine.  Likewise if I had the chance to see the hands of Jesus, like Thomas, I would stare at the hole in the center.  I would be amazed at the rough, calloused hands of the son of a carpenter.  Why not?  I was placing my life into his.

As I showed this post to one of the hospice nurses, she told me how when her daughter Ashley had been born they needed a sign for her name because the dad's side of the family was totally deaf.  Ashley's deaf sign was a closed hand (letter A) in the palm of the hand (as it was placed in her mom's soon after birth).  It is amazing what lessons newborns and toddlers can teach their grown-up parents. 

Things Lost Amid the Packages and Paper

Five years ago our daughter Stefani came down the stairs to a beautiful tree, presents, and family and the look was priceless as her eyes glimmered in the cascade of the white lights on the tree.  The living room was filled with toys and clothes for an only child/grandchild, and dressed in her Christmas footie pajamas was accompanied by her favorite pillow, Po.  He had for five years taken up residence in her crib and big girl's bed and had the Lord's Prayer on his face.  It was a long term member of the family having been Nan-Nan's mom's pillow.  As has been our tradition since she was born, we read the Christmas story from scriptures, lit a birthday candle for Jesus,  and sang Happy Birthday.  At the end of the day, five bags of trash were taken to the curb for the trash truck to pick-up the next day.  Suddenly, we discoverd Po was MIA (Missing In Arms) of a sobbing five year old little girl.  Daddy walks outside in bare feet and a cold drizzling rain to nearly empty the bags looking for a beloved friend and companion.  After long minutes, a dad had to walk in and hold Stefani informing her he could not be found. 

Is Christmas A Humbug?

In Dicken's Christmas Carol, the principle character, Ebenezer Scrooge, is famous for the phrase, Bah, Humbug! The word is also immortalized in the Wizard of Oz as the Scarecrow calls the revealed fake wizard a humbug.  The term means fake, false, deceptive or a hoax.  Ebenezer is rejected by his father after the death of his wife's giving birth to him.  He fills his life with money that is powerless to reject him.  Like his father, he rejects all forms of love, companionship, and family; rejecting them before they can do it to him.  In one of the staves or segments of the book, the husband of Belle, Ebenezer's former fiancee says he saw him in his counting house "all alone in the world."  It is said of Dickens , "His view of life was later to be described or dismissed as “Christmas philosophy,” and he himself spoke of “ Carol philosophy” as the basis of a projected work. His “philosophy,” never very elaborated, involved more than wanting the Christmas spirit to prevail throughout the year, but his great attachment to Christmas (in his family life as well as his writings) is indeed significant and has contributed to his popularity." (biography.com)  Christmas was a theme through many of Dickens stories and while his father was imprisoned for debt in England, Charles was forced out of school to work in a factory to help with the family and gained an understanding of the working class in England.  These events would find themselves as a basis for many of his characters and backdrops. 

Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?  (Mark 8:35-37 The Message)

Scrooge tried to save himself into prosperity and rejected mankind, even the least of man--the poor and destitute.  Scrooge is a picture of anyone who believes that self is more important than others.  Scrooge lost his way, perhaps because of his upbringing.  In contrast to the harshness of his father he was introduced to Fezziwig, who showed a young man the joy of fellowship and Christmas.  So who was the real fake--Fred, the nephew who continually welcomed his uncle to his home or Scrooge who saw everyone and everything Christmas related as a fraud?

Miniature Minstrels and the Message of Christmas

As the school year gets ready for Christmas break (yes, Christmas break and not holiday break or Winter solstice) children seem to sense with hopeful expectation the time off from school and the coming of the red-suited Mr. Claus.  School music teachers have worked hard for weeks to put together a choral event for the parents and as a first grader at Pinelock Elementary, I remember attending in a red sweater vest knitted by my aunt.  I can’t remember the songs but I am sure they were a mixture then of secular and religious Christmas carols.  Parents set up elaborate video machines so they can remember little Johnny or Susie singing their heart out.  Some children fidget around while others are so shy they mouth the words hoping to blend in with the others.  It makes no difference to the parent; they just love watching their prodigy from the auditorium.  I am sure over the decades since I sang in my red sweater vest the programs have shifted from mostly Christian to mostly secular with the motivation of “so we don’t offend anyone”.  Those who change the focus of Christmas would never think of tinkering with other religious holidays, i.e. Ramadan, Chanukah, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, but target the celebration for the birth of Christ for ridicule and derision.