Donald Miller's Blog, page 48

Finding Hope When the World is Full of Unrest

This week, I sat with forty inner-city children around a Christmas Tree. The children are part of a gang-prevention mentoring program. I sat among friends like Jacob and Jill and Tanner and Bruce and Jed and Marcus, who came to The Mentoring Project and said they wanted to help.

Heroes like Wayland and Ashley and TG were there, police officers working behind the scenes, giving troubled kids a second chance.

Each child was called to the Christmas Tree.

There they received a personalized gift. Then, they named someone whom they would give a present.

Here were some of their gifts:

I would give my father a puppy, because he lives alone and needs someone to love him. – Carlos, 9

I would give my grandmother a younger life, so she could be around longer and love me. – Liza, 10

I would give something special to my mentor, Mrs. Michelle, because she helps me and is always by my side. – Tasha, 12

I would give a father-and-son trip to my dad, so I could spend time with him. – Tanner, 15

Each child opened his or her soul to dream.

These were pure, unfiltered, bright dreams. The light of these pure dreams warmed the room. There were beautifully awkward pauses, filled with emotion, as each child reached somewhere deep to pull out their small offering of hope.

After each child shared, they went back to their seat and were swarmed with hugs and high fives. As if the other children instinctively knew to say, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

It was beautiful. Children cried. Adults cried too.

Photo Credit: jilblacktown

One adult stood up and tried to speak. “I love your dreams” was all she could say, and then she was overtaken with emotion. Without hesitation, the nearest child leapt to her feet and embraced her.

“You need a hug,” the girl said.

But I came to the Christmas party torn. I sat there filled with sadness and rage over the breaking news of the Peshawar children—the bloody shoe that could fit my daughters foot. The Sydney shootings. #ICantBreathe. Ferguson Riots. Don’t Shoot. Tamir Rice.

I was overwhelmed by the senseless horror of it all.

I didn’t feel like being at a Christmas party, wearing an ugly sweater, drinking egg nog or opening presents. This idea of Christmas felt shallow and meaningless and insensitive and hopeless. I was losing my grip on the delicate fabric of hopeful dreams, and was becoming Langston Hughes’ “broken-winged bird.”

But I found something that night.

Something beautiful was coming from the mouths of these children: Hope. Their stories were laced with hope. Hope filled their pure-heart dreams. Hope was seen in their smiles and comforts. Hope in their potential, in their future, in their now.

Here’s what I found to be true:

The whispers of hope are louder than the gunshots of catastrophic evil. The resilience of hope blooms delicately over the ashes of bombed-out rubble. And the songs of hope hum quietly in the fragile dreams of children, against the dissonance of terrorism and insanity.

There’s hope.

We see the madness of today and hope for a better tomorrow. We don’t know exactly how to hope or how to express it. But whether we realize it or not, we all hope and wait for Hope to return. This Advent, we need him again—to restore and reconcile and bring justice and grace and peace.

This is our potent hope. That beyond us and bigger than us is a coming newness. A newness too powerful to imagine or express, a newness found in the fragile dreams of hopeful children.

This Christmas, may hope find you again.

Finding Hope When the World is Full of Unrest is a post from: Storyline Blog

Jesus Came to Reconcile, Not to Divide

What I love about our faith is it’s power to reconcile. At the birth of the Christian community, just after Christ went to be with the Father, the Spirit was sent to reconcile Jews and Gentiles (and yes, even Muslims) with no shortage of truth. But the spirit of that movement was love and peace, even if it caused an enormous amount of tension.

In history, there are very few movements that involve strong, unshakeable statements of truth of which people did not lift a weapon to defend.

But our faith didn’t work that way.

Our leaders didn’t lift weapons. Instead they were persecuted. They died for Christ, they didn’t kill for Christ.

Today, Christians have power. The scene has changed. Even in smaller degrees, Christian leaders no longer perceive themselves as the underdog. Pastors of mega-churches see themselves, within the body, as power brokers, able to yield large weapons of social pressure. The scene is often not pretty.

I sometimes wonder if leaders like Billy Graham aren’t the Christian movements Martin Luther King’s, while other leaders are more like Malcolm X.

Both kinds of leaders want the same agenda.

Kind of. But the power-brokering Christian leaders are willing to lash out verbally or bully from their pulpits. They lead through intimidation and fear.

I think the differentiation is important to note. There are two movements growing within Christian culture in America. Both are telling the same truth, but they are driven by different spirits. I’m convinced one of them is not of God because it looks so different than the loving spirit of both Christ and the early disciples.

We’ve all met believers who use the Bible to gain power and control over others. But this isn’t the spirit of Christ we see in the Bible.

It’s the spirit of the world.

And it’s tempting. Being right feels good. But let’s not fall for it. If we do, we are just like every other fighting faction in humanity. We are no different.

If we associate our identities with dogma rather than the person of Christ, we will become just like everybody else, buried under the spirit of the age.

Satan uses Scripture, too. God’s motive for using scripture is to set people free and reconcile them to himself and others. Satan’s motive for using scripture is to give them control over themselves, God and others and to divide and instigate a fight.

Does truth divide?

Certainly. But lets not get confused.

When I think about Christ being the Prince of Peace and also coming to divide families, I picture Martin Luther King, Jr. marching across the bridge in Selma, Alabama.

*Photo by Satomi Ichimura, Creative Commons

It was a tense scene, to be sure, and the movement he championed would divide a nation. And yet, the tension caused wasn’t caused with violence, it was caused with non-violent resistance.

Love our enemies was the “battle cry” of a great portion of the civil rights movement. Turning the other cheek was the command of the day.

And it worked.

Sometimes turning the other cheek creates tension. But the tension is theirs, not ours. Those who want power see a threat to non-violent resistance. People who only know how to go to war have no idea what to do with love. And they don’t want love because love doesn’t offer them power.

When we threaten to abandon those we disagree with, we are participating in the spirit of the world.

Saying farewell to those whose doctrines are not like ours is cooperating with the power-mongering spirit of the world. This is a far cry from the spirit of Christ who died forgiving his enemies, an action that was repeated by his disciples, too. Next time a Christian leader threatens to abandon and divide because somebody doesn’t agree with Him, lets just call it right then and there. This leader is not under the influence of Christ. At least not at that moment.

What is the self righteous man defending?

Why is he lashing out? He’s defending his own truth, rather than a truth that has changed his heart into a loving, humble child of God. And the truth, without love, simply corrupts. There’s nothing magic about right facts. In fact, the Bible warns that knowledge can make us arrogant. It certainly has.

In our everyday lives, this looks like disagreeing while still being truly loving, and even going so far as to honor the nobility and dignity of all of God’s creation. Our love is not a statement of agreement, it is, rather, a powerful statement about the power of the spirit of Christ.

Loving those who disagree with us differentiates us from the spirit of the world and makes a powerful statement about the relevancy of Christ and His mission to reconcile all people to Himself, and to each other.

Reach out to those who disagree with you.

And truly validate their humanity. God does. Because, after all, the chances of all our ideas being right are a billion to one, and God validates us all the same. He does this because He loves us. His children don’t need to be right to be loved.

Have you ever seen similarities between the spirit of the world and the spirit you’ve seen in Christian communities? What would it look like to speak truth, without abandoning, those who want to go the Malcolm X way of generating Christian power?

Jesus Came to Reconcile, Not to Divide is a post from: Storyline Blog

3 Second Chance Christmas Stories to Lift Your Bummer

We all have a favorite Christmas story. Whether it’s the one about the elf with a strange affection for maple syrup, the boy who inevitably shoots his eye out, or a guy named Clark whose unwavering optimism makes him an expert at “external illumination.”

What I love most about Christmas time is the amount of second chance stories that flood our televisions all throughout the season.

They come in all forms.

Some stories are told with claymation, puppets, and cheesy musical numbers but don’t miss their deep and abiding meaning! These stories have lasted for decades, if not centuries, because their message connects with us on a deeply human level by inviting simple truths into our souls, truths like “beauty comes from brokenness,” “joy isn’t about what we own but who we are,” and “even the worst of us deserve a second chance.”

It’s easy to turn on the TV this month and watch a bunch of pain unfolding all around us. In the midst of all these bummers, here are three examples of second chance Christmas stories you can find flickering on the old tube this season that score some points for “team hope” in some profound ways:

1. Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Ok, so we might all be a little tired of the song, but glimpse underneath the tinsel and the sleigh bells, and you’ll get a pretty clear reminder that our shame doesn’t define us. After all the other reindeer laughed and called him names, Rudolf was quick to cover up the very thing that made him different. Little did he know that the big man with the beard would one day use that “defect” to his advantage, giving gifts to the world and bringing light to the darkness.

Sound familiar?

2. A Christmas Carol

Originally published in 1843, Charles Dickens penned one of the greatest second chance stories literature has ever known. Ebenezer Scrooge is a mirror to our rushed, bitter, and material-minded tendencies, tendencies deeply rooted in shame and abandonment (as reminded to him by the Ghost of Christmas Past). But even this miser of a man who most people had given up on got a second chance to be the generous, peacemaking soul that lived deep inside of him.

The parallels between this work and the gospel would take at least another blog post if not an entire book to unravel. For now, I’ll encourage you to look at this story through the lens of reconciliation and grace. It will change the way you see it forever.

3. A Charlie Brown Christmas

If you’re like me, you instinctively identify with the main character, Charlie Brown, when watching this classic. You’re jaded, frustrated at the amount of commercialism, and can’t believe you paid the girl who takes the football away from you to give you psychiatric counsel.

This year, why not view the cartoon through the eyes of the tree? That’s right, that fledgling little tree that no one saw any value in. If I’m honest with myself I feel like that tree more than I care to admit. I can’t see the potential God or others see in me, the idea that with just a little bit of pruning and dressing, I could be a shining beacon that, when others gather around me, can’t help but sing, “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinner reconciled!”

Christmas is a gift from God.

It is a gentle reminder of the plot to this whole story called Life: that we once were lost and are now found, once broken and now restored. The Gospel of the Second Chance brought by the helpless baby-king born in a barn is a gift for all of us…

Whether we’re in inmates in prison. Whether we live in Ferguson or Capital Hill. Whether we’re 5 or 55. Or, yes, even a red-nosed reindeer.

3 Second Chance Christmas Stories to Lift Your Bummer is a post from: Storyline Blog

We Get to Pick Our Treasures

As I was unpacking our holiday decorations, I was reminded that there is a part of the Christmas story that always surprises me.

While the three Wise Men were exiting the scene, the text tells us that the heroine of the story, Mary, “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Whether you think the Christmas story is a fairy tale or the accurate account of Jesus’ birth, this statement should make you stop and think. What did Mary treasure up?

And why does it matter?

The sanitized and ubiquitous manger scenes found on holiday cards conceal the escalating barrage of problems confronting Mary. She was a young girl, separated from her family, and fleeing the scandal of an unwed pregnancy in a conservative, patriarchal society. She was a virtual refugee, giving birth in a smelly stable with only a carpenter for a midwife.

Soon she would be an asylum seeker in a hostile foreign country (which had historically enslaved her people) because the reigning monarch had decreed that he would execute a sea of toddlers to make sure he put Mary’s child to death.

The odds were against her.

And the Wise Men did not seem wise enough to bring practical gifts: diapers, wipes, or food. Gold, incense, and myrrh were probably not what she needed most in her makeshift, animal-themed, nursery.

She was a postpartum, teen migrant with all the King’s men on her trail. Yet, the story suggests that somehow what she chose to treasure up and ponder in her heart were not these difficult and worst-case-scenario circumstances.

Instead, she treasured up the declarations about the identity of her child: from the Wise Men, the shepherds, Joseph’s encounter with the angel, and her own conversation with God’s emissary. She treasured up the signs of hope and the promises of good – these are the things she pondered.

Now that is surprising!

How often are we quick to collect into our own hearts the laundry list of things not going well: the truthful excuses and explanations for our inaction; the injustices and abuse we have suffered; the relational slights or hurtful words that fill our minds; and the mistakes and failures that haunt us?

Photo Credit: Margot Lied

Like Mary, I think we get to decide what we will treasure up and ponder. There is no shortage of painful circumstances to which we can turn, but I have far fewer than young Mary had. It is up to me to elect the hopeful, good, and encouraging things.

This is not a call to ignore difficulties.

Nor is this the nativity’s version of positive thinking. Mary did not pretend that hard circumstances did not exist. She met those challenges head on throughout her life, but she did not elevate those difficulties and obstacles to the status of treasures. We can deal with problems without treasuring them up.

I think it matters what we choose to treasure up and ponder in our hearts: treasuring problems leads to anxiety, treasuring hope yields joy.

If we get to choose our treasures, we should choose wisely.

We Get to Pick Our Treasures is a post from: Storyline Blog

The Deception of Urgency

A couple years ago, I spent a month in a cabin on Bainbridge Island. I was working on a book and I wanted to get away from the city and the temptations that keep me from writing.

If you’d have asked me when I left Portland for the island whether I was stressed, I’d have told you I wasn’t. But the island revealed my stress level was at an all-time high. I only knew that when I began to calm down. There’s something soothing about the ocean and the forest. It’s as though God reminds us through creation all things live, all things die, and He is in control.

Back home I felt a certain urgency.

I felt that if I didn’t get things done the world would fall apart. I didn’t feel that urgency on the island, and yet I wrote more on the island than I had in the previous six months.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

So, is being frantic really the best way to be productive? It rarely works for me. In fact, the more I calm down the more I get done.

I wasn’t sure how to take this lesson home. I would be leaving the island and returning to a pile of bills and meetings and obligations. My guess was everything would feel like impending doom.

But I didn’t want to give in to it.

I wanted to take the forest and the ocean with me. I still feel this anytime I return from a retreat.

So if you ever sit next to me on a plane and hear me mumbling to myself all things live, all things die, and God is in control, just let me have my moment. Or perhaps you can mumble with me. After that, I’ll tell you about the owls that live out back behind the cabin. They fly over sometimes and land in the giant tree out front. If you stop what you’re doing for an hour to shine flashlights into the branches to spot them, you’ll find you’ll get more writing done later that night.

Slow down.

Don’t let urgency keep you from your spouse, your kids, creation, or the God who made them all.

You may find, like me, you get more done when your soul is fed first.

The Deception of Urgency is a post from: Storyline Blog

A Meditation for Advent

Juxtaposing Advent and the pre-Christmas rush sometimes makes me want to take up the mantra, “I’m religious, but not spiritual.” I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just don’t feel the spirit of Christmas and then I feel like I am missing something. During this season when it feels like waiting and watching is an extinct theological sport, such a mantra is freeing in a few ways.

So why “I’m religious, but not spiritual“?

First, it is an invitation.

An invitation to participate in all the rituals leading up to Christmas without the pressure of having to be in the spirit of Christmas at the same time. The practice of our religious disciplines in this way is enough to carry us into the season without all the stress of having to feel it at the same time.

Second, such a mantra makes us accountable for the faithfulness of our lives without having to be inspired. People can count on us to give, serve, and love, knowing that we believe religion is deeper than a feeling of spirituality.

Third, it allows us to be open freely to a deep and genuine spirituality that comes as we move through our daily lives, surprised by the spirit and not claiming it is ours. The two signs that the spirit is present is when it catches you off guard and when it is more abundant than you imagined.

This is Advent.

The season of four weeks during the longest nights of the year to prepare for the incarnation of love in the past, in the present, and in the future. It is called the season of watching and waiting, and it is set in the midst of what is also called the “Christmas Rush.” It’s the oxymoron of theology as we are called to get busy and sit still.

Advent is like the wallflower at a techno-dance party. It is the tea in a world of coffee drinkers. It is the silent prayer uttered in a Pentecostal-style worship service. It is the grief of a person in the midst of a Christmas party. Advent is the silent night between the wrapped Christmas trees glaring light.

It takes paying attention.

And it takes extraordinary religious discipline to carve out this space. But every now and again we are surprised by the spirituality of it all, where in the meandering commercial chaos we find a pathway open up and our spirits connected. This is the gift offered to us in Advent that saves the season.

In the season of Advent the readings in church take us back to the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. It is the time to remember how in that chaos that the Son of God came, not as an infant, but as lead by the Spirit of God to the river to be baptized by John and begin his ministry to love the world. We begin our Christmas preparation then by remembering the prophet John.

He calls us to be religious.

Standing in the wilderness, he invites us to welcome a strange, spiritual life amid our dedicated practice of our faith. John is a deeply religious man; he has sacrificed, he fasts, he prays, he goes on retreat, and he preaches that in it all he makes a highway for God, a pathway towards our Lord.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

Having prepared the way, Jesus comes and takes the religious practice of baptism, a rite of repentance and submission, and the heavens surprisingly open with a spirit that drives him to the wilderness and calls him to offer his life for the sake of the world.

One of my religious tasks has been to try everyday to light incense in the quiet morning of the chapel and say prayers for those who are hurting, grieving, afraid, and oppressed.

I love sitting there.

I love beholding the smoke in the grey morning light, watching it swirl in the air and fill the room. But truly many mornings it feels very religious with not much spirit in it. It is a discipline in which I go through the motions, trying to be faithful and not worrying that I am not inspired.

What I have noticed this past week is how every now and then the swirling of the incense smoke stops and the smoky prayers and incense are all of the sudden pulled in updraft. They look like they are transformed into the tail of a comet, pulling the variegated streams of grey smoke into a line that disappears into the apex of the chapel, high above the flat spirit of my life.

This week the incense transformed and looked like a ribbon tying up a gift that I almost couldn’t accept. It was, as best as I can describe it, an answered prayer that I didn’t know I was praying.

The religious act was filled with spirit.

Spirit thick like a ribbon on a kite. This is an example of the small gift of deep spirituality that you and I long for in the midst of our religion and in the midst of Advent. It is God hearing that silent prayer, like we found our peace in the midst of the night and like we felt the clouds parting for us to find our way home to God.

The gift of the spirit descending is humble, honest, and hopeful enough that it is possible to cut a pathway through being religious into the deep life of spirit.

My Advent mantra now is simply this:

Keep the faith.

Keep being faithful in your work and in your hearts and trust the spirit will come.

Keep giving drink to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, food to the hungry, comforting the sorrowful, tending the sick, visiting the prisoners, and burying the dead, whether or not you are always inspired to do so. It is enough to do it religiously and to trust the spirit is close by. It can be as simple as a ribbon of incense, the shadow of a passing bird, or even come in the middle of the night when you have held out little hope. Such longing is a sign that the spirit is close and that we are making a pathway towards our God.

A Meditation for Advent is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why We Distract Ourselves With Things of Pleasure

Years ago a psychologist named Viktor Frankl stood up to Sigmund Freud. Freud was teaching what man wanted most in life was pleasure. But Frankl believed man wasn’t seeking pleasure as much as he was seeking a deep sense of meaning.

In fact, he went on to say “When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”

I believe Frankl was right.

And I think it’s obvious. Everybody around us, especially during the holidays, is seeking to receive and give pleasure, but pleasure rarely satisfies. In fact, the most contented people I know have found something more satisfying than pleasure, they’ve found a humble sense of gratitude and are actively participating in work that is difficult, beautiful and good.

Viktor Frankl spent most of his life studying the mystery of meaning, and amazingly, he came up with a prescription for how we can experience it ourselves.

His prescription was remarkably simple:

Have a project you’re working on that requires your unique skills and abilities. And preferably a project that helps others.
Share your experiences within the context of safe, loving relationships.
Find a redemptive perspective on your suffering and challenges.

I discovered Viktor Frankl’s work during a dark season. I’d written my first bestseller and yet the experience didn’t satisfy me. I’d wanted to be a bestselling author all my life and I assumed when it happened I’d experience some kind of actualization.

It’s an absurd thought.

But I think we all have these mystical hopes that if we only had such and such we’d be satisfied.

Frankl’s thoughts inspired me to begin to structuring my life differently. I woke up every day and identified a few projects that needed my attention and made a to-do list for each. I quickly began to realize we weren’t meant to sit around and wait for life to happen. We were meant to chase a worthy pursuit.

I also began to pay more attention to my relationships. I stopped looking to “join a community” and created one of my own. I walked away from unhealthy relationships and started spending more time with people who were non-judgmental, kind, supportive and loving.

This had a terrific effect on my stability.

I found myself feeling more content and confident.

And lastly, I took a reflective look at some of the challenges I’ve faced in life and while acknowledging there was plenty to grieve, I also acknowledged I’d been blessed by some of those hard experiences. By that I mean some of the painful experiences I’d had had made me more humble, more tender. This may have been the most healing exercise of my life and I highly recommend it.

Life looks very different for me now. I don’t wake up wondering what life is about or where I fit. I don’t have unhealthy relationships and I don’t pick at old wounds so they won’t heal.

Viktor Frankl’s prescription works.

Sadly, Frankl passed before he could create a formal process people could go through to analyze and organize these three areas of their lives. But the process was so healing to me I began working on a way to explain it to others and take them through it.

We’ve now been able to help tens of thousands of people start living better stories through our life planning materials. This past year we released our most advanced product yet, Creating Your Life Plan, an interactive e-course that allows you to create a life plan based on Viktor Frankl’s prescription to experience meaning.

The course consists of 11 videos.

In them, I sit with author Shauna Niequist in my kitchen and help her create her life plan. As you take the course, you simply fill out your plan along with Shauna and I, watching and listening as we talk about the most joyful and agonizing seasons of our own lives. I was amazed, even as we filmed the e-course, at how powerful the process was. Let’s just say there was a lot of laughing and a lot of crying.

Here’s what I’ve found:

Nobody is more healthy, productive or clear-headed than a person who has planned and is living a meaningful life.

If you’re thinking of someone who could benefit from our life planning course, would you consider gifting them the Creating Your Life Plan Gold Certificate this Christmas?

We truly believe the more people who are living healthy, meaningful lives, the better we will become as individuals, families, friends and communities as a whole.

Let’s celebrate the Christmas story by living our best stories yet.

Why We Distract Ourselves With Things of Pleasure is a post from: Storyline Blog

How to Deal With Your Inner Grinch

The Advent season is a time of remembering the miracle of birth, how Jesus entering the world became the greatest plot twist ever written. It’s a time of turkey, family, sugar plum ferries, ornaments, Christmas trees, and Charlie Brown.

But sometimes the actuality of our life looks more like charred turkey, out of tune Christmas carols, and scantily clad tinsel. Sometimes life threatens to make a Grinch out of us. Sometimes pain, grief, hurt, disappointment, and loss, snuff out any candles of joy we had lit in our hearts.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

What do we do when we find it difficult or nearly impossible to be thankful during the season of gratitude?

1. Find a safe place to let out your inner Grinch.

Maybe it’s in a journal, maybe it’s with a friend or family member, but find a safe place to say or write your Grinch’s thoughts. Stuffing your Grinch’s voice inside doesn’t make it disappear. Sometimes we need a place to admit when life sucks. It is sometimes this admission that can help us find hope and light in a dark season of soul.

2. Be honest with God.

I have prayed prayers to God and it seemed he hung them like ornaments on his tree of prayers, put them on the highest branch just above my height, and then asked me to reach for them. God is mysterious and no matter how much we study him there are some things about him our human brains will never truly understand.

God can take our honesty. He knows our thoughts anyway. So whether you have to cuss, bang your fist, or cry until your eyes are swollen, get a prayer through—even if all you can manage to say is “Help!” or “I don’t understand.”

3. Find your one thing.

Even on your absolute worst day, there is at least a sliver of life to be thankful for. On some of the days that life has hit me the hardest, I am thankful for tears and how they are a way my soul finds relief. In traffic, I’m thankful for India Arie songs to remind me that a smile can be a way to tell God thank you. Even if your inner Grinch refuses to make a gratitude list, think of one thing you can be grateful for and hold on to that.

Sometimes life isn’t all mistletoe and tinsel. Sometimes life is walking through each day with barely enough strength to hold on. Some days feel like more curse than gift. You are not alone. There is a God who sees all, knows all, and loves us all.

May Jesus, who entered the world as saving grace, bring peace, comfort, mercy, and love to you, and your inner Grinch.

How to Deal With Your Inner Grinch is a post from: Storyline Blog

When You Can’t Find Joy in the Christmas Season

It’s Christmas 1989, and my dad’s black Chevy Beretta is idling out at the curb. Time is up at my mom’s for my sister and me, and now we have to shuffle off to another destination on the other side of town, on the other side of this fractured family tree.

We’d woken up early that morning and tried to rush through the presents and breakfast. We’d packed the night before and hurried to change out of new pajamas and into new sweaters and jeans.

But we still ran out of time.

I wanted to stay, to soak in the sense of place and the blessed carnage of scattered boxes and shredded wrapping paper, but no one blocked off space for that on the calendar.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

We had to leave right then — that was the agreement — so we could get over there for the early thing, then onto the lunch thing, then back for the later thing after that. Dad was waiting. We had to get onto his things so that we could get through those things and back later for Mom’s things. So many things, but none of them felt sacred.

I was only seven.

But even then I knew Christmas wasn’t supposed to be that way. Movies, TV, songs and commercials told me so. They spoke of magic and meaning, togetherness and tenderness.

Instead, we found ourselves working out the tense implications of a newly minted custody arrangement. Either pop culture had gotten it wrong or my life had gotten it wrong. Whatever the case, I did not like Christmas anymore. These were supposed to be holy days, but instead they were just busy days.

This is the origin story of my Scroogification.

And here’s the thing: Scrooges like me aren’t born; they’re made. One year at a time, one conflict at a time, one fa-la-la-la-la-la-la at a time. Eventually, anticipation gives way to dread. Excitement gives way to anxiety. Revelry gives way to humbuggery.

I never wanted to declare war on Christmas — I just wanted to dodge the draft altogether. As I discovered along the way, that’s not really an option. Despite my best efforts, I never could opt out of Christmas.

Now, decades later:

I’m a husband and a father.

Despite my baggage, my wife Annie is insistent that we celebrate Christmas in our home. Every year. And I’m working on it—I really am.

I still don’t resonate with the tinsel and trappings and the mess we’ve made of Christmas, but I’ve begun to experience the beauty of Advent: the hope, the peace, the waiting, the longing.

Whereas the way we do Christmas has always felt like veneer to me, I find that Advent has more depth.

The word advent itself means “appearing.”

And it’s meant to be four weeks of space in which we both remember Christ’s first appearing and anticipate his second.

Both joy and conflict are welcome in the Advent season.

You don’t have to paper over your real life with the sheet music to “Jingle Bell Rock.” Advent is an invitation to celebrate the hope of the Incarnation even as we strive and struggle and wait for the world to be set right.

When You Can’t Find Joy in the Christmas Season is a post from: Storyline Blog

Why the Most Magnetic People in the World Aren’t Flatterers

I used to think people liked compliments and so I gave compliments. And it was true. People liked them. But the older I’ve become and perhaps the more healthy I’ve become, the more I’ve realized my compliments weren’t given in actual kindness.

I’d have to say, without knowing it, I really just used compliments in order to make myself more likeable.

Flattery is less evil than, say, stabbing somebody in the eye, but it’s not to be confused with true altruism.

And what people really need is true kindness.

When you read about Jesus in the Bible, He rarely if ever flatters anybody. Instead, He speaks truth into their lives not only with His words but with His actions. He rebukes and corrects, but mostly Jesus honors the value of individuals by serving them. Jesus feeds them, teaches them, washes their feet and contributes to their happiness (wine at a wedding).

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

Flattery is fairly easy, but truly believing in the remarkable beauty of the people around us is something more. It’s not that it’s harder, because it isn’t. What it is is a paradigm shift.

When we flatter somebody, it’s still about us.

We are saying something nice in order to be perceived as a nice person. But when our hearts get changed by God and we see the people around us as His works of art and His kids, a love for them pours out of us. We are delighted at every person even as we are amazed at works of art on a wall at a museum.

When you get into an elevator with strangers, do you wish you could just hit the stop button and get to know each of them? I truly know people like that, and they are some of my favorite people. I think people who interact with others like this are a little bit like God. I think God shines through them and when others are around them, it’s as though they begin to grow the way a tree does in the sun.

Flattery has a short battery life.

But reminding people they are amazing and precious and wanted and works of art can truly change their lives.

I want to be a little more like this. I want the people around me to grow, to flourish, in part, because a truth is shining through me that is giving them life.

I don’t think God flatters anybody. I think He simply finds people to be amazing.

I think He delights in His creation. I think we should too.

Why the Most Magnetic People in the World Aren’t Flatterers is a post from: Storyline Blog