I know this is stoning worthy....but I hate christmas music

Now before you begin throwing stones at me, just hold on and let me explain...and because my mind is a sparatic nutso, I am going to use a list that may not flow logically from one point to another at all...

- To begin, christmas music, is not Christmas music. Small c, christmas, music is those absolutely annoying jingles about sleigh rides, santa, and snowmen. Now I will admit at one point they were catchy and I sort of liked them, but after having them played on the radio for 3 monthes a year for the last 21 years have made them lose their charm. I know the numbers may be an exaggeration, but radio stations now adays start playing them right after Reformation Day, if not before. I am disgusted with hearing them, and the 50 variations upon the same theme. Come on people, how many artists(and I use the term loosely) are going to make a rendition of santa claus is coming to town.

- Beyond being annoying, the jingles detract from the true nature of Christmas, and turn it into a secularized hallmark holiday. Yes thats right, I just classified christmas with sweetest day, valentines day, and all the other hallmark holidays. To prove my point we can look at the origin of many popular holiday music and see it finds its origin in advertising and schemes by companies to make more money. The entire holiday focuses on greed and stimulating the economy. The invention of santa claus is probably the most horrific sin of the 20th century. Why you may ask? Because rather than just causing physical death, like war, santa claus has caused hundreds of millions of people to be led into greed, into sin, into forgetting what Christmas really is. I know its not the only reason, but the invention of santa is one of the causes of the death of Christmas.
Christmas is a Christian feast day following the fast season of advent. Up until december 25th the Church sits in waiting and preparation for the coming King, both the rememberance of His first coming and in expectation of His second coming. The feast season of Christmas doesnt begin until december 25th, and it is a short stint before epiphany. It's time for Christians to reclaim their feast from the pagans, because despite what most americans think, they don't celebrate Christmas! they celebrate x-mas, or whatever other bastardation of the Feast of the Incarnation that removes the incarnation all together!

now you may be saying ok, I agree lets not stone him, or you may have already stopped reading and thrown a few boulders my direction, but time to move from the obvious wretched part of the holiday, to a more subtle, dangerous, and painful criticism of the Christian practice of Christmas. So we are moving from the secular holiday christmas, which needs to be abolished, and removed from the bastardizing power of satan in world, and into the Christian feast day. So lets see what trouble I can get myself into...

- The celebration of the Feast of the Incarnation has historically been within the church a culmination of the fast of Advent. Now adays Churches have a tendency to try and skip advent and jump into Christmas. Churches put up Christmas trees(whose symbolism needs to be reestablished and explained) at the beginning of Advent, if not sooner. While not common yet, I know that many congregations try and push into Christmas hymns during Advent, totally missing the point of Advent.

- Advent is a fast of preparation and contemplation, a fast of waiting. We eagerly await the coming King, and prepare for Him through patient waiting, prayer, fasting, and singing hymns of longing. I feel as though most congregations would rather skip the season and jump into Christmas.
Why? Because we are an impatient people who as a church have begun to forget what it means to prepare and wait in eager expectation. We have bought into sociteies obsessive desire for things right now, for immediacy. We have forgotten the good of longing, of desire, of fasting.


I hate christmas music....because it seeks to destroy the Rememberance of the Incarnation, and turn it into a celebration of the god of money. I loath Christmas music, because it reminds me how we as a church are forgetting to fast and ever seeking to live in 'happy times'.
Christ was not made incarnate because he likes peace and good will towards men, He did not come to earth to make us never want, to make life into a pastoral scene in which animals dont smell and dont make a mess. No, Christ came to suffer and die. We tend to forget the truth of Christ's coming because it makes us feel all warm inside if we say he came to bring peace and good will, that he didnt come to earth the suffer and die for our sins. Yes the incarnation is a glorious miracle which we should sing about and praise, but we must never forget why Christ came, why the immortal ineffable deity became frail mortal flesh.
Let us reclaim Christmas and banish the disgusting perversion that is the feast of greedy consumerism. Let us wait in bitter longing during advent and feel a painful waiting, let us stand up for Christ and His incarnation, and turn from ourselves, and our own desires for peace and good feelings, and serve God, rather than demand that he serve our own desires.

Lord, let me wait in bitter longing with eager expectation for your second coming, even as I await to celebrate your Incarnation and birth. May I cease to abuse your feast for my own good feelings, and remember the true nature of your coming to earth, to suffer and die for our sins. I praise and glorify your Holy Name and remember your cross this holiday season. Amen

traveling agnst

I am currently sitting in the Spokane airport waiting for a flight to get me out of here, and I have been waiting since 6:30am, and wont even know if I can get on a light til 3:05pm......over 9 hours of waiting in an airport.....sigh.

So I am continuing this post in Chicago, which I got to 36 hours after I left from Pullman. Ugh traveling sucks. But highlights....

-I got upgraded to first class on my flight from Spokane to Phoenix, and oh how wonderful it was :-). What a wonderful, and probably once in a lifetime treat. There were free drinks, the seats were comfortable, and there was tons of leg room......sigh, it was wonderful.
- In Phoenix it looked like I would be stuck again, the plane had to cancel 4 spots because of weight restrictions, and things were looking sour, when at the last minute there were a few cancellations and I got on :-).
- It is great being in Chicago again, I've missed it alot, and am extremely excited to see Hugs and Rizzo and whoever else is around...still not sure of who all is here.
- I stayed at the Wyndham hotel because I couldnt get picked up at night, and well..it was also wonderful. The bed was exceptionally good, and their restaurant has wonderful coffee....which I am enjoying as I write this along with some soup. I really should write more often, it is good for the soul, like a good cup of coffee or scotch.

- Did I say I got upgraded to 1st class for free? :-) Wonderfulness

But alas and alack I will end this post to begin a more critical and cranky one.

labor

It is fascinating how manual labor can be so refreshing, and so rewarding, in the midst of a life of study, and mental abuse.

Grad school is like boot camp for the mind. In boot camp they push you to physical limits and break you down in order to build you up, here in grad school I find that they beat your brain to a pulp with a large amount of complicated and extremely taxing mental labor, plus I sometimes believe that grad profs find profound glee in tormenting grad students and giving grades like 65/170 and calling that a B+.

In the midst of this tremendous difficulty, and new mental landscape I find myself not finding comfort where I once did. In undergrad where I had mental power left after doing school work for reading and writing, I find that my mind cannot contemplate anything after the extreme stress of my work and therefore I find myself in need of a new method of maintaining sanity. And surprisingly manual labor has risen as an answer.

Well I should probably realize that it is not surprising given my studies and my predilection to monasticism. 'Ora et labora' The cry of the Benedictine order, work and prayer. The Benedictine's follow a rule of balance, a rule of simplicity. They pray, study, and work; a life which most of us can't imagine, believing it drab and dull, or difficult. Yet I continually find myself returning with joy to patterns of life that I had while living among the Benedictines. Prayer, maual labor, study: It seems that when all these things come into balance life is slightly less crazy, and my sanity is more well maintained. Maybe there is something deeply ingrained in human nature that requires all three, without which there is dissonance.

And yet also the Benedictines teach us that while these three seem separate, they are in fact, and should be inter related. It is not just ora et labora but also labora cum ora. Not just work and prayer, but work as prayer. We were not meant to live a disjointed unbalanced lives, instead God created us in such a way that we should live in harmony with ourselves and with one another. But this harmony isnt just a balance, or a hermenutical meeting of otherness, but a realiztion of the ways that the other express the self and vice versa. We work and pray, yet also we pray by working. What a joyful comforting realization! That when we strip away all the brokeness and imbalance we can find a place in which working becomes a prayer and a restoration. Coming home to do laundry after having gone to class, taught and graded no longer has to be a stressful and painful thing, instead in the quiet mundaity of laundry, in which I am not thinking of physics or of grades I can begin to simply pray and give thanks for the things God gives me: for clothes, and shelter, clean water, and a way to wash clothes. I find that all the small little things of life become an opportunity of praising God while also finding refreshment and renewal of a grad school weary spirit.

Lord let me always remember you in the little things. Amen

Thanks and giving.....the holiday before christmas

As the years go by there seems to be a trend about this time of year. A trend to skip over Thanksgiving, over Advent, and jump straight to christmas. In years past stores resisted putting up christmas decorations and items until after Thanksgiving, radio stations played everyday music til at least Thanksgiving. But now stores have skipped Thanksgiving and some even hand up christmas products before Halloween was even over. A radio station in Detroit started playing Christmas music on November 1st, nearly two months before the holiday, and every ad on TV, the radio, and the paper seems to be about christmas shopping and products. It is interesting that the richest and most greedy population on Earth are the ones who have decided to skip over there own holiday Thanksgiving and go onto a more tolerable holiday of self indulgence, greed, and selfish desire.
Writing on how christmas has lost its meaning in America is a very long and drawn out topic, and is for another time. No, for now is the time of Thanksgiving, despite what the media tells us. It is time for American's to give thanks for what they so abundantly have. It was pointed out to me by a charity worker that even the poorest of the poor in America get more to eat, clean water to drink, and shelter than a good part of the world, I think he said a number even as large as 75%. To realize that even our poorest, most destitute citizens are richer than 75% of the world! And we skip over giving thanks and demand more!
Our economy is shot, we are all afraid of losing money, all our savings, being unable to support our dry houses, our clean water, our daily supply of food. Oh how terrible it is to be an American today! What we as a country spend on our venti half caf lattes a year alone could end world hunger if not more! And yet we think we have a right to pray to God to save our economy, restore our fortunes and save us from actually living thankful lives. Because no, we do not want to give thanks, we do not want to admit that what we have is a gift, we want to believe that we achieved it all on our own, that we are strong enough, smart enough, independent enough, that we do not need God or His gifts.
I am not saying that wealth is inherently bad, or that we deserve the crisis we are in, but I am asking us to return to reality. To realize that we are blessed above every other nation in the world by God, and because of that we have responsibilities. We have responsibilities to give thanks, and to properly use our wealth. God gives gifts not because he wants to please us, but because he wants to teach us to give. We all are nothing on our own, we all have nothing, and so we cannot give on our own. It is only by God's mighty grace that we have anything to give. God desires us to become like him, to become loving, to become full of Life through love. When we hoard and store and turn our backs on the world we sink deeper into sin, deeper into our selves, farther from God and deeper into death. God desperately desires that we would turn outwards, acknowledge the gifts we have been given, giving thanks everyday, and as a corollary to share those gifts with others spreading God's love and grace. And maybe, just maybe we will find that when our hearts are turned outwards and we give more than we want, and we thank more than we whine we will find that God gives so abundantly that we cannot hope to give it all away, that we will find that His Love, His Life is a boundless spring which seeks to permeate the universe with infinite Glory, infinite majesty, harmony and joy. God desires so much more for us than we have, if only we would cease to cling to the clay sculptures that adorn our hearts and let the refining fire of God's grace and love fill our heart's instead. It is my hope and prayer that I can live by my own words, but only by the help of the One who came to help the helpless, and bring the dead to Life. To God be the Glory, Father Son and Holy Spirit now and forevermore. Amen.

Reformation Day II: Sorrow

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored
And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
They will know we are Christians by our love

Today is Reformation day, and so one part of me rejoices in the triumph of the gospel over those human failings that would have hidden and distorted the gospel so many years ago. But another part of me weeps in sorrow over the bitter schisms, which rend our Lord’s most Holy Church. We are all under one calling, one gospel, one Lord, and yet our sinful humanity divides us, we fight, we argue, we even go to war over those things which divide us. Reformation day is a wonderful day to remember the strength of the Word and of the gospel shining throughout time and rising in loud strains upon the criticisms which the reforms made of the Church. Yet one cannot but help to remember all the schisms and the brokenness of the Church today. How the day of victory is one of sorrow?
I pray that one day I may be reunited with my brothers and sisters in Christ under the Word free of all the human sinfulness that so distorts our thoughts and causes us to depart from one another.

The Church’s One Foundation
By Samuel J. Stone

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ, her Lord;
She is his new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.

Elect from every nation,
Yet one over all the earth;
Her charter of salvation:
One Lord, one faith, one birth.
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses
With every grace endued.

Through toil and tribulation
And tumult of her war
Se waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore
Till with the vision glorious
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth has union
With God, the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won.
O blessed heavenly chorus!
Lord, save us by your grace
That we, like saints before us,
May see you face to face.

Reformation I: Mysterious Ways

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. 1 Cor 1:18-19 ESV


When all was naught, when neither energy nor matter, neither space nor time existed, You existed. In emptiness You alone were infinite fullness, and from Your infinitude through absence all things came to being. Where there was no space to be filled your fullness made space to overflow into. You are the ontological mover, the One from whom and by whom all things were made and without whom not even nothing would be made. Your existence is even necessary to predicate such a thing as non-existence, for without You there is neither existence nor nonexistence, for there is no thought not concept to comprehend the negation of the ontological necessity of You.

Your ways are higher than my ways, Your thoughts higher than my thoughts. You act in mysterious ways that we can neither observe nor understand. For you became incarnate as a man who neither betrayed the Glory of God to those around him, nor thought the glory a thing to be grasped but humbled himself to death, even death on a cross! And so the incomprehensible mystery of the cross, of infinite humility killing the infinite deity. The death of Life itself, and yet in that death, the death of death itself. Life giving death, the abdication of death by death itself. Oh Glorious Holy Mystery! How I yearn to dwell in your mystic incomprehensibility!

All my wisdom, all my ways, all my self-reliance, my feeble power is swallowed up in the mysterious ways of God.

From the cross thy wisdom shining,
Breaketh forth in conquering might
From the cross forever beameth
All Thy bright redeeming light

Oh Mysterious Cross! The wisdom of God shining as death and suffering redeem! In the broken places, in death on the cross comes the conquering redeeming light. Not in chariots and horses, not in regal glory, but instead in abject despondance and brokenness. Oh the folly of God that causes the wise to stumble and the arrogant to fall, but to use who cry out in despair and hopelessness we are given hope and life, we are raised from the pit and into a new life, not just one of a new experience of this life, but a new life all together which permeates all things and raises us to be no longer creatures of God, but instead sons and daughters of God.

Lord, keep us steadfast in your Word;
Curb those who by deceit or sword
Would wrest the kingdom from your Son
And bring to nought all he has done.

Lord Jesus Christ, your power make known,
For you are Loud of lords alone;
Defend your holy Church that we
May sing your praise triumphantly.

O Comforter of priceless worth,
Send peace and unity on earth;
Support us in our final strife
And lead us out of death of life.

Keep us steadfast in your Word, hold us in the gospel light never to fall away from your son. Oh Lord of Lords and King of Kings, hold us in your hand, guide and lead us through the dark nights of life and lead us by your ever shining light. For from the cross your love and grace call us from death to life through the Holy Spirit. Guard and protect your church, lead it to unity in your Word and Spirit.

Quotes taken from the LSB. Thy Strong Word, and Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in your Word are written by Franzmann and Martin Luther respectively.

ZZ Top, exams, and more oh my!

It has been quite a while since I have updated my blog, so I feel as though I should add an entry even though it will be quite scattered as I try to recollect many happenings over 2 months in a short space.

To begin with recent events, reverse chronological order, or how I remember them randomly.....I went to a ZZ Top concert on thursday and it was aaaaamazing! This is the second time I have seen them in concert and both times it was wonderful. They have a great mix of rock and blues and they are very entertaining. If only I could grow such a lucious beard, but alas and alack I'll stick with my small goatee.

The next day I had a quantum exam, which was wonderful. I strangley enjoy doing quatnum tests....actually I just enjoy doing quantum period. I was also prone to the realization once again that I have this unusual inversion in that I am terrible at easy things and great at hard things. I found the quantum test to be very easy and simple, while the rest of the group didnt, which I think pissed them off, but it also made me realize once again that in undergrad my lowest physics grades were in lower level classes, while my highest grades were in my quantum(supposedly) hardest classes. I have this weird correlation where I do better as an increasing function of difficulty, which one would think is the opposite of how it should be. I am weird.

I had a math methods exam and got slaughtered by it, because whoever grades seems to be a jerk. The problem that the fewest people got right was weighted the most....which once again adds to the ever growing lists of angst towards that class. It is neither a physics nor mathematics class as it lacks mathematical rigor, and it also lacks physics, so its some weird bastardization of the two that pisses off both the physicist and mathematician in me. I really miss valpo where math classes were taught by math profs and physics was taught by physics profs and people didnt disrespect each others fields by bastardizing it.

Cleaning and keeping track of an inordinate amount of mail(primarily junk) and lab reports is continuing to be a problem. Everytime I clean and organize it is back to a mess by the next day. I feel like I need to be cleaning 24 hours a day just to keep up. Its like the pile of lab reports grows while I sleep and spreads all over the apartment.

Well I must pause for now and return to the endless tide of work....