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Treasure Up
With the hoopla over and done with, Christmas odds and ends now line store shelves bearing garish clearance priced stickers, just as Christmas leftovers line our refrigerator. (Is anyone going to eat the rest of this turkey? Please?) Carol singing and candle-lit services give way to the cold reality of January and our mentality shifts from the magic of it all to monotony: back to work and school, back to trudging through snow and waiting for busses and paying credit card bills… and cleaning out the fridge. The advent book we started but failed to finish sits on the coffee table like a half done To Do List. (I can’t read…
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Transformation
It’s here. Finally. Snow. We’ve been waiting for it, expecting it, watching the skies and the weather reports—this is Wisconsin after all—and it’s come. It came in the night and transformed our yards, covered up any leftover leaf piles and our oddly green grass. All is changed. All looks new. All is covered over, fresh with promise. Transformation is beautiful. The snow is beautiful, at this moment, early in the morning, as I lounge on my couch and write. I love the snow, from inside. I love the idea of snow. But later, when I step outside to shovel or scrap off the car, or when the kids and the…
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The 12 blogs of Christmas #12: Packing up Jesus
It’s that time of year again. Time to put Jesus in a box. Pluck him off the shelf and swaddle him in tissue paper and stash him in the basement until next year. Christmas is over, right? And this final blog post is kinda late, right? Reason #1: I had the stomach flu. Reason #2: I meant it to be “late”. If the 25th marks the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth, he’s a whopping 4 days old and now it’s kind of like… party’s over. Thanks for coming. Now everyone go home. Here’s the thing: babies grow. And grow and keep growing and walk and talk and go on to…