Advent

I spent a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with an aunt, uncle, and two cousins in the Sacramento area. I don't get to see them often enough, and it is always great when it works out. We ate too much food, played a few games, watched an old movie, but mostly just enjoyed being with each other. I think that the time really helped to put me in a good mood for the start of the season.

As of today we have entered Advent, the four weeks leading up to the birth of Christ. Since Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, it means that Advent will last for a full four weeks. In spite of some of my frustrations with this time of year, there is still a a lot about this time of year to love.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about how much I enjoy the Christmas music. I can't explain exactly why I love it so much, but I do know a few reasons. Partly, it is special to this time of year. I only get a month of it each year, and I'm always sad to retire it when the season is over.

Another reason I love Christmas music has to do with the way my family celebrates Advent each year. Every night during Advent my family has a time of "Advent Candles." We all sit around a table with four candles in the middle. Each week of Advent we light one more candle until all four are lit during the final week of Advent. During this time my family sings Christmas hymns together. That was such a huge part of Christmas for me growing up, and I miss the fact that ever since I started college, I've only gotten a few days of it each year. Still it has left me with a love of the music of the season.

Holiday!

As most people are, I'm taking Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving. This will be the first time I have had more than a weekend off since I started at Toyon on July 11th as a full time employee. I've fallen into the routine pretty well, but after four and a half months, I'm glad to have a four day weekend. I will be heading up to Sacramento early tomorrow morning to enjoy the holiday with extended family. A blessed Thanksgiving to everyone.

Running with Horses

As you may remember, my Church has been studying Jeremiah for the past eight weeks, and we will continue studying it right up until Christmas. There are a lot of insights that I've gotten from the studies, and I wish that I had taken the time to share more about what we were studying. Still, I'll take a bit of time now to write some of my thoughts from our studies.

The first portion of Jeremiah is very dark and depressing. Israel has been destroyed, and the southern kingdom of Judah has fallen away from God. They have forsaken Yahweh and chosen instead to follow the gods of other nations around them. Jeremiah spends his life preaching to people that don't want to hear him call out their sin and proclaim God's judgment. It has really helped my perspective of the world to see how Jeremiah struggles with God. When Jeremiah pleads for God to restore Judah as an obedient, holy people, he gets the following response:

So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to you.
(Jeremiah 7:16)

How awful is that? Judah has become so sinful that God has to tell Jeremiah, "Don't even bother praying for them. My judgment is coming and it will not be held back." Later Jeremiah complains that God isn't doing anything about the sin and injustice in Judah:

You are always righteous, O LORD,
when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all the faithless live at ease?
(Jeremiah 12:1)

When I'm upset about the evil I see in the world, usually I want to hear God's promise that He will take care of things and bring about justice. That isn't what Jeremiah gets. Instead God questions Jeremiah:

If you have raced with men on foot
and they have worn you out,
how can you compete with horses?
If you stumble in safe country,
how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?
(Jeremiah 12:5)

Paraphrase: "I'm telling you right now, things are going to get much worse. If you can't deal with problems as small as these, how will you deal with bigger problems?" That isn't exactly comforting to me, but it is telling of where I look for security. I look to the world for security and I want God to make the world secure. God never promises that. Rather he promises eternal security with no particular guarantees about my present life. When I remember that, and can start to change my focus accordingly, that does bring comfort from the evils of the world.

Holiday Rant - Right on Time

Last year I had this mini-rant a week before Thanksgiving. Once again I am going to take this day, the Thursday prior to Thanksgiving, to talk about a frustration of mine regarding the holiday season in America.

It doesn't surprise me that once again I am seeing the Christmas season start before Thanksgiving is over, and I still don't like it. I have, however, come to realize that this is part of secular America I'm just going to have to live with. Yesterday while I was driving home, I heard something on the radio that made it worse. I was listening to K-LOVE, a national Christian music station. They starting talking about Christmas. I immediately thought, "great, even the Christian media can't be patient." They said something like "Christmas is about..." followed by some list. I don't really remember what all went in there, except the last one, "...and shopping." At first I figured that they were going to make some sarcastic point, but no, it was all about K-LOVE's Biggest Christmas Ever! In particular, a contest that will send the winners to the Mall of America for a $1000 shopping spree.

It is incredibly upsetting to me that a radio station claims to be about Jesus, but is seeking to build up holiday shopping excitement rather than excitement about celebrating the gift of Jesus' birth.

Happy November Birthdays

Since it seems like about half of everyone I know (at least from college) was born in November, I figured I would write a personal happy birthday message to all such persons simultaneously. If you were born in November, even if I don't realize it and even if I don't know you, then this is to let you know that you are special to me.

Happy Birthday person born in November!

Thanksgiving Plans

It looks like I'll be heading up to the Bay Area, and possibly a bit of Sacramento for Thanksgiving this year. I'm planning to drive, so if anyone else I know in Southern California wants to carpool up there, let me know.

Unexpected

I am sometimes a little surprised at the ways people reach this blog, particularly some of the web searches that lead here. Today I saw that someone got here by Googling for Santa Barbara Drunken parties. Even more surprising to me is the fact that I'm the number one link. Now maybe it's just because Santa Barbara isn't big on partying. I mean think about the colleges here: Westmont, Brooks, and UCSB. Only one of those them even makes the national top five list as a party school. Clearly Santa Barbara just doesn't have much of a drunken party scene.

I wonder how long my blog will hold this distinction.

A Tale of Two Nights Swing Dancing

Last week when I arrived for Wednesday night swing dancing I was greeted by about ten women, who were very excited to see me. I was only the second man to show up, which meant that they could now get one out of every five dances instead of one out of every ten.

Fast forward to this week. Last night I arrived at about the same time. This week I was the fourth man with no women there yet. Fortunately a women showed up before too long. At that point I think we had about six men for her to choose between. After a few songs another women showed up, and before too long we had three women for our six men. As the night went on, many more people showed up. I don't think we ever reached equal numbers, but it got close enough that I never had to sit out a dance unless I needed the break.

Hopefully next week things will balance themselves out...