God bless you and yours today.
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Good King Wenceslas
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
This is one of my favourite carols. It’s a favourite because in its verse you find the legend of the Saint Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia, better known in Czech as Svatý Václav. The act of giving and the miracle found within the song are deep, subtle, and wonderful.
95% of people out there don’t know more than the first verse, so may I present the whole of the carol, using DC Comics’ 2008 Holiday Special:
Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gath’ring winter fuel.
“Hither, page, and stand by me, if thou know’st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence, underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes’ fountain.”
“Bring me flesh, and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither:
Thou and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither.”
Page and monarch, forth they went, forth they went together;
Through the rude wind’s wild lament and the bitter weather.
“Sire, the night is darker now, and the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how; I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, good my page. Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage freeze thy blood less coldly.”
In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.
Advent #6: Love
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
The last candle lit before Christmas Eve is the candle of love.
Love is one of those words that loses meaning far too quickly. We love wives and we love video games. To top it off, it sounds like a weak word. What’s the opposite of a badass? …A really loving person?
We don’t give power to love in our cultural consciousness as we should. We give power to money, things, ideas, people, memories, cultures – but love is not on the list. Even Christians, who profess a loving God, push for aligning power-structures and power-words with their faith (reason, prosperity, safety, fear) rather than champion love.
Love is a God who humbles himself to the level of his creation.
Love is a God who places himself in a marginalized group.
Love is a God who proclaims his own entrance into the world by including the excluded.
Love is a God who dies for those who hate him.
Love is a God who died for you.
Love is a God who gives us hope for peace and joy.
Love is a God seeking to bring everyone and everything home at all costs.
This is why Christmas is about Love.
WK
Advent #5 – Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds, The Christmas Song.
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
This is one of the most emotive Christmas (-y) Songs out there.
She was his girl; he was her boyfriend
She be his wife; take him as her husband
A surprise on the way, any day, any day
One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy
The wise men came three made their way
To shower him with love
While he lay in the hay
Shower him with love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around
Not very much of his childhood was known
Kept his mother Mary worried
Always out on his own
He met another Mary for a reasonable fee, less than
Reputable as known to be
His heart was full of love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around
When Jesus Christ was nailed to the his tree
Said “oh, Daddy-o I can see how it all soon will be
I came to she’d a little light on this darkening scene
Instead I fear I spill the blood of my children all around”
The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children all around
So the story goes, so I’m told
The people he knew were
Less than golden hearted
Gamblers and robbers
Drinkers and jokers, all soul searchers
Like you and me
Rumors insisited he soon would be
For his deviations
Taken into custody by the authorities
Less informed than he.
Drinkers and jokers. all soul searchers
Searching for love love love
Love love love
Love love is all around
Preparations were made
For his celebration day
He said “eat this bread and think of it as me
Drink this wine and dream it will be
The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children all around”
The blood of our children all around
Father up above, why in all this anger do you fill
Me up with love
Fill me love love love
Love love love
Love love
And the blood of our children all around
WK
Advent #4: Joy
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Christmases in my late teens are some of my fondest feelings of my entire life.
I feel odd talking about this time in life because I’ll end up talking about kittens, Rice Krispies, Care Bears, and babies to get my point across. That warm feeling that is far too rare in life is the only other way to describe these times of the year. The closest thing I can reason why these times are felt and remembered this way has to do with people, however briefly, in complete reconciliation with each other. If only for a few hours, 10-30 people around me become drama-free and seem to rise to a different level of human interaction and intimacy. As I begin to think it about, I miss it.
Part of God becoming man was to reconcile everyone to everything, or at least to start. God wants us to love to him, love each other, and love the world around us. That is the vision of the future that I caught in those times. C.S Lewis equates joy to that idea – he called it sensucht, a funny-sounding german word for that indescribable feeling of longing that isn’t necessarily bad, but a good longing. Feel me?
Lewis goes further to say that joy isn’t the end state, but the journey to the state. The joy of those Christmas memories is that it is a glimpse along the journey towards what the New Creation. And when that comes, we will have untainted knowledge and relationship with God, pursuing the greatest understanding of a fully unknowable God. That is the greatest joy.
And that, to me, is Christmas.
WK
Advent 2009 #3:Peace
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
There’s no money in peace.
We live in a world where the absence of peace means making a living for far too many. From a trillion-dollar world military complex, to drug companies, to health food stores, to ’safe’ toy makers, to political activists, to culture-warring Christians, ’seeking peace’ can mean a wonderfully full cash flow, a guaranteed profit margin, and a spot on the nightly news. And it only costs us something we don’t really know anyway.
People in a fallen world aren’t wired for peace. Sin has made peace impossible on all fronts: no peace with the world around us, no peace with each other, and no peace with God.
The only true peace people could look forward to were fleeting moments seeking and worshiping God and hoping for peace in the end: the end of life, the end of the world – neither of which were particularly good prospects and neither rarely came soon enough.
This changed however, for at least two people 2000 years ago. A teenage virgin found out she was pregnant in a culture ready to shun and even kill her for it. Her older fiancée faced social shame and mockery. These two people found peace on earth when they found out who this child would be. The child they helped bring into the world in a stable brought peace to isolated shepherds on the night of his birth. 2 years later, men from the East came and peace was upon them.
Later this child grew to become a man of peace for thousands, and upon his death, granted the opportunity for peace to all. We may now know the beginnings of reconciliation with the world around us, the people around us, and with God.
Peace can be yours now because of Christmas.
WK
Advent 2009 #2: Hope in hurt
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
I have some friends going through really hard times.
They are seeing relationships of all kinds falter, fade, and dissolve before their eyes. It hurts me to see them hurt so, and while I’m praying for them to see the light eventually, the only other thing to do is help bear their burdens. It’s a hard thing to do and sometimes, it’s hard to see the other side of the pain.
What of Advent?
As the Israelites waited for the Messiah, Romans ruled over them, the sick and lame lay in the street, and God still kept them in Exile. Their hope was only for the Messiah to come and bring them from the darkness of exile back to the light of God. There were many hopes for what this Messiah would do – militant action, religious purification – but what I love about the Messiah who came, was that he attended to the true needs of the people, bringing them from the exile of relationship with their God. In doing so, as he said, he bound up the broken hearted, preached freedom for the prisoners and set the captives free.
This is the hope I try to bring to my friends: that Jesus has come to bind up the broken-hearted people of the world. Hopefully, in this season of advent, we can look to the hope of healing that came with Jesus’ arrival in a little manger. In this week of reflection on hope, I think of the hope for now and the future time. I hope that my friends who are hurting can hope for healing in their lives by looking to the arrival of the binder of their hearts.
WK
Advent Blog Day 1
Sunday, November 29th, 2009
Hello everyone!
Today is the first sunday in advent, which means that it is advent/christmas blogging for my blog. I’ve been doing this at various levels for 5 years now, and this year I’m going to theme each week by advent candle. This week will be ‘hope’, so expect musings, memories, songs, and videos relating to the Hope of Christmas coming.
To start us off, here is what I believe is the most hopeful song in the history of Christmas hymns. It says everything I would want to say about it, so here it is:
O Come O Come Emmanuel
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
From depths of Hell Thy people save
And give them victory o’er the grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times did’st give the Law,
In cloud, and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
Updates
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
So hey. I think I forgot to tell you guys that I have a bonified, full-time-with-benefits-and-pension-plan-9-to-5-dress-like-an-adult job. I’m the Web Content Specialist at my Alma Mater (almost), Tyndale University College and Seminary. It’s pretty exciting to be creating things on a (nearly) daily basis, with more coming down the stretch in the next few months. In honour of that, despite the fact that I have had the job for two months, I need to update this place.
My friend Dan pointed on his site to this idea called ‘blogazining.’ The idea is that blogs are too standardized and the creativity of the layout is lacking to the extreme. This inspired me to really analyze my own layouts to see if I can go a different direction than I have before. Playing around with code was an idea I had when I started this whole domain-name thing in the first place, so I really need to sit down and think on this.
Have you ever seen the guys at CSS Zen Garden? Talk about some of the prettiest CSS out there.
Well, that’s all I guess – just wanted to fill in people who didn’t know. Drop a line about where I can find some good ideas for designing this place.
WK
