The holiday season, which really is an Advent Season, is in full swing. My neighbors have put up their lights, some more garish than others, not to mention the lawn pieces of lighted moving reindeer and, gasp! Peanuts in a stable. I kept looking for the rest of the Nativity scene but could only see Snoopy and Lucy.
Who makes this stuff, I wonder, and, even more importantly, why would someone buy it? Granted the Charlie Brown Christmas is a cute cartoon, and it actually includes a recitation of the angelic annunciation to the shepherds, Linus telling Charlie, “That’s what Christmas is all about,” but Charlie in the manger? Bill Schultz would shudder.
Then there’s the woman a few blocks from my home who has a lovely Nativity, only it includes Snow White and the seven dwarfs in addition to every blowup creature you can imagine paying homage to the Christ Child. She’s clearly more on target, for as Luke’s Gospel tells us, the angels gave the Good News to the poor and the humble.
Prayer for the Day
Now in this Season of Advent, we long for the peace that is promised,
But the world is still full of powerful leaders committed to violence;
Now in this Season of Advent, we want to be filled with your hope, O God,
But it seems so little has changed since the time of the shepherds.
We pray for hope, but we know that your hope can only abide in us,
As we work to be peacemakers in this turbulent world.
In the name of the One who calls us to be peacemakers,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
When wilt Thou save the people, O God, of mercy when?
Not states or corporations, but children, women, men?
- Ebenezer Elliott, British reformer (1781-1849)
People say, “What good can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time. We can be responsible for only the one action at the present moment.
- Dorothy Day, radical reformer (1897-1980)
Happy are those who consider the poor; the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble.
May the Lord guide them and keep them alive; they are called happy in the land.
Psalm 41: 1-2