Against Nothingness

December on my blog... fail.  Back at the end of November  I pretty much gave myself permission to not blog.  This was a singularly bad idea as that permission became my banner for the month.  I raised my head from the black depths of self-fulfilling prophecies briefly on the 9th with my only post of the month.   Shockingly, if I were to make a top 3 lists of post views in December, you would find it at the top.   What did I learn? That with no intention to write, it just doesn't happen.  That I find it very easy to fill my time with other things.  That I miss blogging and writing when I leave it for so long.  That blogging and writing are not  the same thing.  That preaching really does suck up a lot of energy.  So, nothing new.  When the last Advent Sunday passed I thought to myself, 'Hmm, maybe I will blog a bit before Christmas.'  I even started a post.  But let me tell you, nothing kills the creative spirit of an introvert quite like 2 and a half days of straight e

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year.  Not so much because of all the stuff, like decorations and presents and parties (though I like these too), but because of the story.  The advent story is so full of goodness.  I hear it every year, and each year I learn more.  This year I have been thinking about how messy it all was.  Mute old man, pregnant teenager, displaced families, murdered infants, and on and on.  I know, we like to make it all clean.  Silent nights, pretty cradles, and clean animals.  But Jesus was born in a cave surrounded by stinky animals and I am pretty sure he cried.  For songs about Jesus birth I much prefer this song , from Behold the Lamb of God .  Things were not just messy on earth as a consequence of Jesus coming down to us.  They got messy in heaven too.  Take a look at Revelation 12 if you want to know what I mean.  We dare not forget this side of Christmas. You might wonder why I have been thinking about this.  Let me tell you (I know, you