when traditions are grabbed on to.

i am not a big fan of tradition whose only purpose in life is “we did it this way last time”

last nite, the beautiful Val and i celebrated Christmas eve with a few of our neighbors from Potter street where we have lived the last 19 months and are 5 days away from leaving… it was a fitting end to have a house full of good food, laughter and excited wife squeals and dances as the snow we had hoped for and asked for and desired so much decided to put in a guest appearance.

it was a really fun and feel-good evening and really quite simple to pull off.

and it could quite easily have been different! we could have rocked out on a lavish two person feast and just gone wild on our favourite foods and desserts and made it all about us. we could also have saved ourselves the effort of cooking and cleaning and made a reservation at some local restaurant and let someone else do the hard work.

but we decided to reach out to some of those who we have befriended this year. to some who may have spent Christmas by themselves. and to those who have emphatically welcomed us into their lives and space.

                                                                                                                                    i suspect it had something to do with us both coming from families who specifically at Christmas [altho many other times as well] made a special effort to reach out to those who are lonely or alone or less fortunate than themselves…

we may not have fully grasped it as children and may even at times have been resentful as to why these ‘strangers’ are invading our space and taking a part of our time and our cherished favourite foods… but the moment we understood it and realised the significance of this simple act demonstrating the life belief we hold to and try to live out, it started to make the most sense in the world…

so we invited some friends around. we prepared a whole bunch of yummy food [including an amazing wife experiment involving sweet potatoes and marshmallows as a main course item] and we decorated and we prepared a fun question activity and we jumped and dance and sang when snow started to fall in the midst of it all – and we had the most amazing and hopefully transforming meal and evening.

i am not a big fan of tradition whose only purpose in life is “we did it this way last time” but tradition that is soaked with purpose and meaning and absolutely dripping with Love… well, that is something that we will have to keep coming back to, year after year…

and i would love to hear stories from anyone else who did something at Christmas that involved reaching out to someone different from those expected… please share.

why it’s imperative you shovel snow today.

i shoveled snow this morning for the first time and it was quite enjoyable and i imagine i could never shovel snow again and be quite happy – it was a fleeting novelty for sure.

altho i know that if it snows tomorrow i will have to shovel snow again. it will not be enuff that i shoveled it today.

i cannot live off the memory of yesterday’s shoveled snow.

the same is true with the crap in our lives – broken relationships, wounds, offences, struggles with temptation, sin…

it is not enough that i dealt with it yesterday, that i overcame it, that i cleaned it up…

the moment there is a new relationship needing work, a new wound that i have caused or received, an offence i’ve taken from someone [because offence is never given, it’s taken], a new temptation that is strongly calling, a new moment of mess-up or getting it wrong… i have to grab my proverbial shovel and deal, repent, ask for forgiveness, fight against it, seek healing and restoration and so on.

i cannot live off the memory of yesterday’s dealing with stuff – when it arrives freshly, i need to get shoveling.

dealing with something the first time is often easy, or easier.

asking someone for forgiveness, while not fun is generally doable, but when you mess up again and have to crawl back and ask for forgiveness FOR THE SAME THING, wow, man, give me snow any day… so it becomes easier to let it build up.

in philly, if you leave the snow unshoveled for too long, you get a fine and have to shovel it anyway.
in life, if you leave stuff undealt with for too long, you suffer for it and will undoubtably have to deal with it at some stage anyway… and by then it will have probaly built up a lot and require so much more work and effort.

you got any snow that needs shoveling?