Christmas 2012

Just didn't seem right to let a Christmas go by without writing something here, especially since I let so much self-absorbed negativity leak out in other posts. I've been assured that it's better than bottling it up, but it still feels slimy. And Christmas is always better than either.

Very much the same gig as the last several Christmases, only I remember that last year I wasn't sure what this one would look like, or if it would even be recognisable. I am ashamed to admit that I wasn't entirely immune to a little trepidation about the whole 2012 apocalypse thing. That's what happens when you cut your theological teeth on half-baked ravings from end-times junkies. God has put a lot of effort into my deprogramming, and I have done my best to cooperate, but the residue can take a long time to flush out.

There is no denying that the ride to this point in the year has been rough and wild enough for two years. I really appreciate Christmas under such conditions, but find myself wishing it was easier to hold on to the gems of love and light and hope that I manage to wrest from the tunnels that need to be dug through shootings and elections and disasters and God knows what else.

I don't want to take them for granted. No matter how impenetrable the things I want to stop doing or being, but can't, may appear, no matter how misplaced any scrap of beauty or peace may seem in my midst, no matter how loud the lunacy outside may howl, those gems are still gifts from a good God. And He knew exactly who He was giving them to. That points to hope. And as long as I have that, I am still standing and moving forward.

I don't know what else to write. I am troubled. So many people have been buried under that lunacy and I would not begin to know how to help them find their own gems even if I were in a place to do so. That hurts. I would give them mine, if I could. But the things that affect me rarely translate well to another's perspective, even if they didn't just bury a child or lose a home. I can tell of what God has done in and for me, and maybe sometimes my conduct doesn't make that a total joke, but I can't make someone else experience it for themselves.

All that is way above my pay grade. All I can do is the best I can do with what I'm given, keep learning from my mistakes, keep pointing to Christ, and hope it gets real for others like it did for me. It still happens, all over the world, in good times and bad. Even I can't muck that up. There's that hope thing again. Merry Christmas. God bless us, every one.