But If You Are Alive...

One note said:

“It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep.”

That is a gift,

if you are dying.

That is the only thing you can give your family and the people that love you....

But if you are alive,

if you still have years ahead of you, if you are still above ground, breathing and living, that note is not a gift.

It is a curse. {full post}

[via The Prodigal Jon]

Celebration For The 'Have-Nots'

As I chat with people, loneliness is named most often as the reason why people find Christmas difficult.

It’s easy to say lonely people have the wrong perspective. Let’s look deeper. Our letter-boxes contain sales catalogues with jewellery that lovers can exchange for Christmas, spa packages for couples, and menus for the family roast. We walk into shopping centres filled with people rushing, pushing, bumping, focused on making their Christmas perfect. Around the corner are pictures of starry-eyed children singing Christmas carols. The television airs movies about love, and families. Everything seems geared up to tell those feeling they have not, how much they are missing out on.

If we are using this time to celebrate Christ’s birth: let’s get with it! Christmas is not about the ‘haves’, it’s a celebration for the ‘have-nots’.....

If God had decided to hang out only with agreeable heavenly beings, where would we all be?

What do we really need to celebrate Christmas? {full post}

[via Musings of a Third Culture Kid]

That Would Take An Inspiration

Anyone else inundated with bright colored dancing cute things' ads telling you life isn't complete if you don't go to (your ad here)? And I got a kick out of seeing somewhere that there is a new way to view the festive Saturnalia/(your holiday of choice here) which is a big new sales event on Saturns.

This isn't just a season that threatens those now jobless with a bad time, it seems to be hell on wheels for shopaholics. I may have to get that Chia pet... to put away for next year. Okay, what I really want is some flight shoes....

Without the rampant buying spree that the Saturnalia season has become for those businesses, there will less for all those welfare CEO's.

Desperate times might remind our corporate sector that without a living wage, consumers mysteriously disappear. That would take an inspiration. Well, 'tis the season.{full post}

[via cab drollery, HT: The Seminal]

Have Yourself a Peace and Justice Christmas

[via cheaper than therapy, HT: Jordon Cooper]

The Reason For Everything

Ponder this for a while: Jesus isn’t just the reason for the season; he’s the reason for everything!

Everything!

Jesus is the reason everything exists in the first place.

Jesus is the reason anything exists at all.

Jesus is the reason anything still exists.

All of creation, that includes you and me, is for Jesus.

And he became one of us, so that he might reclaim that which was his by right anyway...only because of the incarnation, death and resurrection, everything becomes his in fact.

My question for you:

How should this truth affect how I think, act, feel and live? {full post}

[via The Thinklings]

Being Warm in the Cold

(also on Twitter: salvationarmysk)

Salvation Army Community Centre: It's cold outside

How we handle the extreme cold at the Centre

[via Weblog: News from the Salvation Army Community Centre, HT: Jordon Cooper]

Related:

Since we are now thigh deep in the giving season, I feel it is pertinent to share my complete and total disgust with the fact that shoppers trampled a man to death on Black Friday. If you're not familiar with the story, and don't mind having your faith in humanity tested, read more here. A few onlookers even stopped shopping long enough to make jokes about how overweight the person was that they had just killed in their haste to save five bucks on a panini maker....

In order to maintain my giving spirit in the face of such a dreadful story, I've decided to give you five good reasons to do your shopping at your local Deseret Industries, Salvation Army or other community thrift store: {full post}

[via East Coast Frost]

Wonder and Space...

Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008

[via The Big Picture, HT: Bene Diction Blogs On]

How Long?

How long, now, have we been waiting for you to come back to us?

Almost eighty generations. Almost two thousand years.

How long, now, have we been waiting for you to come back to us?

Countless wars. Countless plagues and famines and floods.

How long, now, have we been waiting for you to come back to us?

We are bleeding.

How long?

We are suffering.

How long?

We are dying.

How long?

Our hearts are breaking.

How long?

Our minds are breaking.

How long?

Our bodies are breaking.

We are still waiting.{continue...}

[via On Journeying with those in Exile]

Under The Radar

I’ve seen more emotive Marys at Christmas pageants in preschools.

Often this is what we have to pick from when it comes to cinematic Christmas tales. If it’s not an inert and literal Biblical drama such as “The Nativity Story,” it’s a soulless contemporary comedy such as “Four Christmases.” If we’re not being pandered to, we’re being lampooned.

“Children of Men” takes neither of these familiar approaches, which may be why it flew under the radar for so many audiences, including religious ones. True, it’s not the sort of endearing Christmas movie you’ll want to cuddle up with each year as part of your family’s yuletide tradition, but in its own way it’s an Advent picture to treasure.

[via ThinkChristian.NET]

Christmas Is Still Coming, Right?

How the Grinch Prorogued Parliament

[via CalgaryGrit]