Words from a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but a fool is consumed by his own lips.
At the beginning his words are folly; at the end they are wicked madness . . . and the fool multiplies words.*

Here’s something to remember: Everything in life is moving in some sort of progression. And the final destination has everything to do with the initial direction.

Thus: Words that start with an early twist will end in a hopeless knot . . . and the fool doesn’t know when to quit.

I’m convinced words are the most powerful things we have.
Used wrong, they’re also the most dangerous.

The tongue’s not just a fire, it’s a flame thrower. One that backfires, burning up the shooter.

The words of the wise are cool water. Quenching everyone’s thirst . . . and fire.

Speaking of words’ progression, I’m reminded of a Robert Frost quote:

A poem begins in delight
and ends in wisdom.

And wisdom is it’s own delight.
(I said that.)

Measure your words; by them we are measured by everyone else.

_______________

*Ecclesiastes 10:12-14
Next: Be Slow on the Draw. 

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Hi Blank Slate readers, and greetings of the new year. It’s another time to look back and look forward. Here at the house we took a moment to do that around the dinner table, asking each to share one high point of last year. I said this blog.

It started one year ago today, with 75 subscribers. Now, some 98 posts later, there are 521 subscribers. The subjects have varied, some comical, some personal, some philosophical. Fairly early it turned into meditation on Ecclesiastes, and I’m still thinking of publishing the series in book form when the ten or so entries left are done.

Recently I took time out for the nativity, a worthy topic at any time of year, but not to be missed in December.

The personal takes have included my Wish for More list this day last year, and the Wish for Less List that followed. Then there was the Anne-aversery in February with the overview of our 46 years together, and Jesus After Breakfast, a poem of self-conviction. More recently there was Musings on Being Age 69. That, and The Two Lists in One, was a good exercise for me, and maybe a model for you to do likewise.

There were some intentional diversions into blatant humor like Gobbledygook and E-Mail Disclaimers, The Entabulator, Letter to Nigeria, More Title Options, Blog Spams, and Response to Blog Spammers. There are always more of these kind in mind, but I never know how much of your time to take up with such frivolity. Then again, we do need to lighten up; the world can be too serious.

For the more serious, however, there have been links to a couple of sermons, like Love, the Greatest Power in the Universe, and Not What but How, thoughts on faith.

Then there are the comments from readers, which can be as interesting as the posts themselves. I’m always grateful for them.

And I’m grateful when I learn that some reader has shared a post with a friend, or recommended subscription.

As for what’s next, I don’t know. It is a “blank slate.” I have some ideas–more biblical, more humor, more personal, more philosophical. Who knows? Your suggestions will be useful.

So, as the early Romans
exchanged gifts and wished each other good fortune on this day,
(believing that the beginning of a thing was omen for the rest of it)
I also wish you good living,
good working and playing,
good moving and resting,
good thinking and good reading this year.
I’m glad we’re together.

__________________

BTW, I just delivered another sermon, pertinent to the “New Year.” It’s called Transitions and speaks of hope. To listen, click on the link.

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Let’s see, if I was a father and I wanted to give a gift to my children, a special gift, like an inheritance, something out in the future, I’d put quite a bit of thought into it. You should sort of know it’s coming, but not perfectly, not until everything is ready. I’d probably let some hints out, not real obvious, just getting you to trust me . . . that I had your best in mind. The hints would grow in number and variety over time. Only in looking back, after the surprise is presented, would you see it had been planned all along.

Yes, I’d find that very satisfying and, I think, you would too.

Here’s another . . .

If I was the maker of all mankind and, seeing help was needed, wanted to join you for a time, how would I do it?

Would I be something of a superhero, dropping in with a cape and costume and unusual powers, fighting crime on one hand and posing as a Mr. Mild on the other? But where would I have come from? You’d want to know. And is crime the real problem, or something deeper?

Would I come as an angel (probably shedding wings), showing up at moments and then mysteriously disappearing? You’d probably find that disconcerting, worrying, off putting and scary.

How about as if someone “back from the dead,” with knowledge of the other world . . . and promises and warnings of what to hope for or dread? But who would I say I had been?

How would I, to quote Jim Morrison, “jump in your game?”

I know. I’d get myself born. I’d travel the whole road you do, starting with the birth canal. Not that hard, really, as miracles go . . . God-sperm meets human egg and voila, holy hybrid . . . with full attributes of both Mother and Dad.

Yes, that’s what I’d do. Both of these two. And I did!

To us he is the present
A swaddling surprise on the straw
New, but previously promised
A gift . . . to be opened with awe.

________________________

So endth my seven Advent meditations.
We’ll get back to “normal subjects” again shortly.
Just didn’t want to miss the chance to look again at what’s so great to look at every year.

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This, from our creche, not the card

This morning I received a mass e-mail from a church headquarters in England. It said in the interest of the environment they were blessing us this year with an electronic Christmas card. We were even reminded to consider the environment before printing the e-mail.

I wondered, “Why would I print the e-mail? Unless I wanted another iconic picture of Mary and Joseph and Jesus looking like idiots on drugs, eyes rolled to the sky, with an angel flying by looking about as spaced.

Sorry to offend anyone, but I’d like to make the point for history being flesh and blood, not sentimentality and child’s art.

Mary and Joseph were real people. They were likely good people, but not perfect people. Had God been waiting for perfect people, we’d still be waiting for Christmas.

At just the right time, when the exact number of generations had gone by in Jewish lineage, when world power was at its zenith, the unassuming, unpretentious, unknowing and non-competing Mary was selected as first and only, worldwide, “Miss Virgin.”

Not much is known about her before her now 20 centuries of fame . . . just that she was engaged to a carpenter, could ride a donkey and, as was pointed out later, in the lineage of King David.

Same with Joseph. He was a good man, of basic honest character, willing to divorce the woman he loved when she with child not his, willing to marry her anyway when enlightened that this was of God. (In those days an engagement was already a legal contract.) What he was likely naive to was that if the kingly line was still continuing in Israel, Joseph was in line for the throne.

And of course his first son would be king after him.

All this is hidden, and revealed, in the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. Worth a look.

The likely fact is, however, Mary and Joseph had little idea about all this and no idea what was happening to them.

Which, by the way, is about how it is with us. Only the future will reveal what was really going on, the significance of our times, and our possibly having been chosen for “something.”

Meantime, like Mary and Joseph, all we can do is play our parts as well as we can.

And hope some future artist doesn’t make us look half dazed.

(Then again, that might be accurate.)

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Fear Not (detail), collection: Mrs. Arthur S. DeMoss

You’ve noticed by now that these posts are coming more frequently than usual. It’s to get all the first Christmas characters in before the date. We’ll go back to normal after that.

A Christmas creche would not be complete without angels. One could wonder what they think of how we represent them. But then again, they do keep themselves pretty mysterious . . . ducking in and out of human sensory dimension. Biblically, sometimes they appear as men (never as women, by the way, or chubby babies), other times as these radiant beings.

On the night of Jesus’ birth they stepped out of the sky and said, “Fear not” . . . always the opening greeting when they show up like this. It was a host beyond number and must have looked like the spawning grounds of fireflies . . . but large, glowing and pulsating. And they were bursting forth with what they could hardly contain, trying to wake us to the import of it all.

Funny, my ears went up when NPR announced they’ll be doing a series to get back to “the real meaning of Christmas.” They’re calling it “Tinsel Tales.” Wonder what the angels would make of that.

Angels, messengers of God, sometimes warriors, keep themselves out of sight but for exceptional moments. This was THE exceptional moment, the birth announcement of all time, the “good news of great joy for all people.”

That is the Christmas message.

They gave God highest glory and added, “Peace on earth.”

(Note that they said it, not sang it; probably because Handel or Bach hadn’t been born yet.)

But there’s been some question about this angelic peace remark. Where is it?

The question is even in one of our carols. In I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Longfellow lyriced:
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

The next stanza returns to faith, but times were hard and he had his reasons to doubt.

Just like these days. Where’s world peace?

Unless it’s the peace Jesus talked about . . . internal peace . . . “not as the world gives.”

It’s the best Christmas gift there is.

And I thank the angels for passing it on.

P.S. I’ve never painted a “nativity scene” but once, and that was ten years ago. I called it “Fear Not.” Here it is.

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Okay, so far we’ve looked at some members of the Christmas creche (shepherds, wisemen) and some not there (Caesar, Herod). Another pair that at least Mary and Joseph would say should not be ignored are the two venerables, Simeon and Anna. That’s because of their identifying the Christ having never seen the child before.

Each of these were known in Jerusalem as relics, Simeon often in the temple, and Anna basically homeless but for the temple.

Tradition dictated that the newborn be circumcised, christened and consecrated. With Bethlehem so near the capital, it would be in the Jerusalem temple itself. Interesting, these coincidences.

You must understand that this was not the highest period of Israel’s “light to the nations” history. The priests were Sadducees, liberals, basically unbelievers in anything “supernatural.” The Pharisees were over-religious, legalistic and joyless. The Zealot class was negative and only talked politics. The Herodians stayed on the “safe side” of the sociopath on the throne. For everybody, being under pegan Rome was a gall. Then there were the sellout publicans, collecting taxes for the Romans and pocketing a take for themselves.

Besides all the conniving within, there was a general prejudice against all non-Jews as “unclean” and “unchosen” which limited perspective on about everything . . . including God.

To use a line uttered by Lara to Yuri in Dr. Zhivago, “This is a terrible time to be alive.”

But in the middle of all this we have the righteous and devout Simeon and the constantly worshipping, fasting, praying, temple-dwelling Anna.

It’s difficult to imagine such types today. Personally I have a hard time fasting between breakfast and lunch. And praying for five minutes is a feat. Seems so unrewarding.

These two were rewarded, however. It had been revealed to Simeon he would not die until he’d seen the Lord’s Christ. Then, this day, he recognized him . . . in the form of a newborn. And so did Anna.

How did it happen? I assure you there were no halos.

Somehow their eyes were opened. And what everybody else saw as something plain, they saw–and proclaimed: “The Lord’s salvation, the glory of Israel, a light to the Gentiles.” The parents just marveled.

This was given to Anna and Simeon in apparent reward for their piety.

Piety.

I remember reading a speech by Aleksandr Solzenitsyn where he said, “In its past, Russia did know a time when the social ideal was not fame, or riches, or material success, but a pious way of life.”*

I underlined that and wondered if it were not also so in our own country.

But I ask myself: Is it still possible . . . in our busy times? Why would we do it? Where’s the reward?

Unless our eyes, too, might be opened.

__________________
Luke 2:21-38
* to the Templeton Foundation
Next: The Angels 

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I told daughter Allison the next post would be on “the powers” and she said, “Angels?” I guess I didn’t mean the real powers, though that would be a good topic too. Rather I meant those that rule the earth, representatives of whom are very much part of the nativity story . . . though never part of a Christmas creche.

Take Caesar Augustus as prime example. His role is distant but central. It was by his dictum that a census be taken and, by Jewish custom, meant this engaged couple had to return to their place of heritage. That was a hundred miles from where they lived, no easy walk for a pregnant girl, donkey or none; and they’d never have gone but for Caesar. But getting them there, just in time for the birth, fulfilled (and still shrouded) the prophesy that in Bethlehem the world’s savior would be born.

Such wasn’t noted by many, certainly not Caesar, whose statuary around the empire named him as “Savior of the World.” His coins called him “Son of God.” There might have been a problem had he known these titles were being ascribed to a baby in a far off provence.

It’s of note that Christ was born at the height of the Pax Romana, the widest rule of any one man in history, before or since.

Any such claim for title was an issue with Herod, however, the low born and ambitious half-Jew king they called “The Great.” And they’d better. Josephus wrote that he spent all his energy routing out any competition, murdering even his own sons and his favorite wife for moves he thought suspicious.

One of the lowest despots in all history, and Jesus born right under his nose.

Not that he’d have known at all had the magi not inquired. Then, his insecurities burning, he sent out his men to cut down all Bethlehem’s babies under the age of two.

The Massacre of the Innocents has been painted by many a Renaissance artist, but you’ll never find one on a Christmas card.

And how about those soldiers, strong, trained, armed and fierce, up against sucklings and mothers. It’s thought that with tiny Bethlehem’s population of a thousand, some twenty children were killed.

What? No. Maybe it never happened. Go to Wikipedia: “It’s all myth,” with scholars quoting each other.

And so the opposition continues.

No matter: When a bigger picture’s unfolding, even the powers can’t stop it.

___________________

Next: The Pious
With apologies for the coincidence of the 20 children killed in Connecticut, in these, our civilized times.

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Anne thinks it was in Guatemala City that we bought that creche. No matter, it’s traveled many miles since. Sort of like the wisemen, also part of the scene.

Some would speculate that they probably weren’t there that first night with the shepherds. Nor did it matter to the parents, better to spread the holiday company out a little, if possible. And Herod’s response of dealing with babies two years and under leaves us with a wider window for their visit.

They’d come a very long way, likely Persia (now Iran) and had been on the “road” about six months.

Think about it. If you wanted to drop in on someone to give a few gifts on Christmas day, you would have been traveling since June. And that’s not sitting in the back seat watching videos . . . it was hard slogging,
provision planning,
fortune expending,
camel rocking,
mountain ascending,
desert trekking,
robber avoiding,
heat enduring,
cold abating,
ground sleeping,
sickness retching,
thirst quenching,
joints jerking,
wife-missing,
shoes mending,
meal rationing,
moods swinging,
staff managing,
animals tending,
route re-checking,
pit-stop making,
days-long resting,
and very slow going.

One could wonder how many times they wondered what they were doing all this for. How many times did they consider turning back?

But there was this star. Something so unusual it still baffles. A comet?

They were star-gazers, followers of astronomy’s precursor. That, and whatever else they had . . . some think access to ancient Hebrew prophesy that foretold a portentious birth with world-wide ramifications. We don’t know and the generally detail-minded Matthew remarked only briefly on this one.

They came to the capital and did their protocol, international guests as they were, and inquired what was known of the birth.

“Ah, birth, yes, a future king, yes, well, ah, we’ll need to get back to you on that” . . . then, whisper whisper . . . “Ah, Bethlehem, yes Bethlehem, that’s what the scrolls say, a little town up the road. Can’t miss it. And let me know what you find so I can come do my worship bit too.”

Seems odd that no one accompanied the entourage for that last short walk down to Bethlehem, even for curiosity. But as Jesus would later say, “It’s in his own country that a prophet is not known.”

He also said, “The seeker finds,” and find they did. They gave their gifts, opulent and symbolic, and, as the parents must have thought, useless.

That is unless cash was needed for an escape to Egypt with soldiers behind.

Then the magi, with fitful sleep, re-routed course and camel-slogged the whole six months back again. Did they wonder on the way, “What was that about?”

It was just a baby. To very young parents, penniless and bewildered, with nothing to guide them but grit and dreams. It was all, you would say, underwhelming.

If we’d known all this before we started, would we have gone? Would we do it all again?

But then, where else would we go?

We’ve seen just enough to kindle a faith. And with a faith, an action. Though the trek be long, costly, and sometimes accompanied with doubt, where else would we go after what we’ve seen?

Where else would be go after what we’ve seen?

_____________

Back in Dana Point.
Next: ‘Tis the Season . . . for the Powers 

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‘Tis the season to remember again that which no season should forget. I’m always grateful when it arrives.

Again this year we unboxed our creche, the one we got in some Mexico City market many years ago. (Or was it Tlaquepaque, outside of Guadlajara?) Though some arms are missing and wings fallen off, Anne’s got it arranged better than ever inside a relic cabinet from India. I’ve always admired the delicate look and attention to detail on the bisque fired clay. And that’s not to mention the scene it represents, sentimental as it is.

The shepherds are there, reminiscent of the real ones, also made of clay, though breathed with life.

There they are, gazing in wide-eyed wonder . . . not so much at the baby, but for what they’d just beheld . . . glorified beings ripping open the sky and announcing a wonder not to miss.

Wonder it was that it was revealed at all, but particularly revealed to them. Shepherds!

Shepherds, out-door dwellers, months-unbathed bottom-rungers . . . but not overlooked, and that’s the point, as no one is from heaven.

Shepherds, the sort of which would not be welcome anywhere indoors, but here at home among the beasts. Perhaps that’s why the Christ was born outside.

Or maybe so nothing would obstruct heaven’s view.

Yet, there’s reason more: There was a king, years before, who’d been a shepherd first. He’d risen to greatness and been given promise that from his line would the greatest come. And that in Bethlehem.

So, shepherds, the time has come; you’re all welcome here.

But wait, there’s more. Both shepherds and kings and all between: You’re more like sheep than you know.

And the baby you’re gawking at, your shepherd he’s become.

______________
Currently in Seattle.
Next: The Wisemen

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Painting? Thinking? Moving on . . .

Yesterday I said that the list of things that I want and the list of things I have are the same list. Here’s the list, at least in partial:

A wife and companion whom I love and who loves me…
Friends…
Family…
Health…
Relationship with God…
Peace with self…
A house and grounds—for shelter, comfort, hospitality, entertainment, and self-expression…
An occupation that I enjoy—that satisfies me, fills my hours, and offers continual challenge for growth…
A means for ongoing income, and even occasional “jumps” in income…
A regular opportunity for teaching, occasional lecturing, pulpit speaking, etc….
Occasional mentoring…
An avenue for writing, expressing ideas, developing that craft—and getting feedback (thank you)…
Access to the whole world’s library for my reading, intellectual growth, curiosity…
A small community of friends with whom to meet regularly, enjoyably, and meaningfully…
One best friend with whom to share all thoughts, always accepted, regularly, weekly, year after year…
A great son, great daughters, great spouses of each, and many grandchildren…
Freedom—by virtue of living in America, California in particular, and southern California especially…
Life in surroundings with pleasant weather and beauty—with hills, trees, and ocean all at hand…
A garden…
A studio—with all equipment, and for Anne, same, and shared…
Freedom of schedule—to wake and make my own decisions what I would do that day…
A church—for nurture, contribution, and wider society of more-or-less like-minded people…
Two great cars, paid for, and good roads…
Freedom, time, and wherewithal to travel to any destination that appeals to the two of us…
A life-style of trips to interesting places to stay in for awhile, get to know, and make art…
An ongoing purpose to provide any aid within family, for parents and children, when appropriate and as necessary…
Same with friends…
Music—any kind accessible any time…
Information—also all accessible (what with Internet)…
A busy life, which as I’ve said, is a gift…
Our possessions, which we enjoy and which in part describe us, but do not hold us and are not our meaning…

To summarize, there’s nothing I can think of that I want that is beyond my having.
I don’t want that much.
I’m rediscovering Jesus and the immensely deepenable life that is available through mediation on his.
All this seems plenty enough for now and the years to come.
I’m grateful.

(And that’s another thing.)

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