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Having not had real internet access last week due to being away, I ran across this series from blogging PC-USA, California pastor, Mark D. Roberts, done the week after Christmas on “Christmas Reflections.” They are all good, especially the last one regarding “Celebrating Christmas in a broken world.”
Click the above links and check them out if you can.
I was especially heartened by this quote from the Reflections post:
“So how can we celebrate Christmas in a broken world?
What we mustn’t do is pretend. Christmas is not a time to pretend as if everything’s right with the world. This is tempting, but ultimately self-defeating and contrary to the Christian gospel.
Above: The beautiful and peaceful Christmas lights reflecting in one of the lakes in Irvine, where I live.
Below: A picture from Banda Aceh in Indonesia, taken just a year ago after the tsunami destroyed the city and killed thousands of its residents.
So what should we do? Well, for one thing, I’d suggest that we allow Christmas to increase our longing. So many of us live in a stupor, accepting the brokenness of our world as a given, rather than as something in need of divine mending. The Christmas theme of peace on earth should increase our longing for peace on earth. It should augment our dissatisfaction with violence and injustice. It should amplify our hope for the future, even as it motivates us to be peacemakers wherever we can.
….As important as this is, it isn’t the end of the story. There is also the promise of peace on earth, of the broken world made whole. The time will come when heaven and nature will indeed sing the song they were intended to sing by their Creator. What God did through the Incarnation is the beginning of true peace on earth, even though it’s not yet fully here. The brokenness of our world, and, indeed, of our own lives, drives us to the only One who brings wholeness. And this is the One whose humble birth we celebrate at Christmas.”
Am I the only one who gets a little of the post-Christmas blues? I think I have a little bit of that this year.
I love in increasing order: autumn/Thanksgiving/Christmas. I like giving gifts, a lot of the music, the special events, etc. Late last week, as my wife and I went on a hike in the mountains in northern S. Carolina, I think we both realised that the abrupt end to the holidays and on to a cold, dark winter had caught us feeling a little down.
Sunday morning, as often happens, the minister who was preaching seemed to aim directly at me. He talked of Psalm 130 and the significance of taking the lessons of Christmas and not just wrapping them up in a box in an attic, but making sure they could advance forward in your life for the rest of the year.
I’m not an emotional guy – maybe a bit sentimental, but that message sort of got to me, after the dwelling on the whole “event” of Christmas that was passing, and how it was getting me down, it was a big pick me up to not just throw the previous few weeks away as a fun time at best, or a waste of time at worst, but to carry the lessons on for the new year.
Not sure where I’m going with this, but I can say that the thought of how to handle the “event” of Christmas into something that I can take away has been on my mind the last few days, even as I call it a “post-Christmas” blues and put away the decorations.
Can there be anything more uniquely American than college football bowl games on New Year’s Day (or on 1/2/2006 this year because of 1/1 falling on Sunday)?
Having actually attended a New Year’s day game, and feeling free to admit that after a traditional Southern meal of collards and black eyed peas, I have sat down in front of the tube to watch up to seven consecutive games in years past; I have often wondered how the bowl game event appears to those who are either not native to the USA or who have never really been close to the culture that produces them.
Today’s six games continue a tradition started at the close of the 1800’s in Pasadena, CA when an exibition football game was needed to complement the “Tournament of Roses” parade. Since then, New Year’s Day in America has been a decidely conservative event, wrapped in archaic traditions and overflowing with an amalgamation of pop, folk, regional, and high-capitalist culture. There is probably no other day when these particular blends of American life combine to form as rich a tapestry as they do on New Year’s Day.
The “Tournament of Roses” parade is still the most amazingly complex and beautiful parade of its kind.
Lots of sportswriters and Joe Six Pack’s at home on the couch would like to see a NCAA Division IA football playoff. Lots of arguments can be made for that. An argument that can be made against it is what we would lose culturally were these wonderful festivals were to go.
Most bowls are year long events with basketball tournaments, parades, youth sports events, 5K runs, charity drives and other community building events. A mere rundown of the bowls confirms this.
The bowls are conservative, not in some public policy way, or in some hot-button issue of that consumes people; but conservative in that they honor and build community and that they rise organically from the individual communities. No bowl would exist were it not for the much-maligned bright-colored blazer wearing official. Capital One, Citi, AT&T, Toyota, and Nokia all pony up large sponsorship dollars, but the volunters, fueled by civic pride, love of amatuer athletics and ground-level commercial interests drive these events. And the events invite, not force large parts of the nation slumbering from the post-holiday festivities and winter blues to get up and participate as spectators, band members in parades, athletes and contributors.
The fact that they invite universities from across the land with their unique combination of traditions and youth shows the dual nature of these most conservative of events.
New Year’s Day in America is understated in a gaudy way with these bowls. There is probably no better way to understand what America is like at its core than to observe communities preparing for the bowls.
Happy New Year!
Click on the bowl to see their year long competition, the teams to see box scores as they become available.
Toyota Gator Bowl
Louisville vs. Virginia Tech
AT&T Cotton Bowl
Texas Tech vs. Alabama
Capital One Bowl
Auburn vs. Wisconsin
Tostitos Fiesta Bowl
Ohio State vs. Notre Dame
Nokia Sugar Bowl
Georgia vs. West Virginia
FedEx Orange Bowl
Penn. St. vs. Florida St.
Rose Bowl presented by Citi
USC vs. Texas
