Barenaked Ladies, U2 and Coldplay Celebrate Christ

 

This year, like every year, there are lots of “Christmas Songs” on the radio.  Many, if not most, essentially tell the story of Christ’s entry to the world and what it means.  So there you are in Bath and Body, Nordstoms, or Home Depot – and bam – on comes the Barenaked Ladies with God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen:

God rest ye merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born upon this day;
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray.

[Chorus]
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy!

From God our heavenly Father
This blessed angel came;
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings of the same;
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by name.

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You were MADE to meet your maker

If you know me then you know that my wife is way cooler than me. No question. One such area of cooler-ness is that she seems to find new and interesting music all the time. This is especially depressing for me because I have been a musician, in one form or another, for the better part of 20 years. Depressing I say - but on with the point.

One such discovered band (update - now super popular and super Grammy nominated) is Mumford and Sons and they have a song Awake my Soul that I love with the following lines:

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life

Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker
You were made to meet your maker

Normally the phrase “meeting your maker” is used around the idea of death and the fact that we all get the chance to meet our maker - like it or not – when we close our eyes that last time. You meet your maker when life runs out – or rather into Him.

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Luke 2:12 & 34

December 25, 2011

 

Christ -- The Sign for All People

I like everything about Christmas - the lights, decorations, trees, and festivity of almost every public space.  I like finding gifts that express my great love and thanksgiving for those in my life.  I like Christmas movies (especially Charlie Brown), cookies, cards, and the general sentiment that something is different.  There is a communal anticipation, a hope, a looking forward to the morning of Christmas.  For a moment, the world seems to pause and everyone is aware that the day is different.   

And every year I read The Story (Luke 2) and am re-amazed by the obvious fact that the single greatest birth story of all time is covered in about two pages of text.  Every year I want more, I want to ask the Shepherds questions and find out how Joseph really felt seeing his young love, Mary, go into labor in the most inhospitable of places.  I want the text to give me something – and this year it gave me the word “sign” and it gave it to me twice.

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What Can a Free $1,000 Do? Lots if You Use It.

No joke.  This post is about you and your friends giving away thousands of dollars of someone else’s money - $10 at a time.  I can’t tell you how many “thousands” (legal details blah blah blah) but its lots. 

What:

$10 free that you can invest in a humanitarian project of your choice.  Take our spare change and your spare time (its only 10 minutes) and give hope.  No strings attached.  No gimmicks. Just $10 free for you to invest in the world. No assembly required and its safe for kids.

Why:

 

About the time I started writing Humanitarian Jesus I also helped found The Glue Network – a new way of empowering people to impact need by finding new sources of funding like brands and companies to supply the money. 

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Linus Saves Christmas!

 

Can we stop saying that “Christmas is under attack” or being wiped off the map by the left-wing media?  Really, can we just shut up?

 

Christmas is Christmas and there have been 2,000 of them (give or take) to prove the point.  Does calling a giant evergreen tree lit up with lights in the front lawn of The White House or in Rockefeller Center really change the fact that everyone knows it is a Christmas Tree?  Does suggesting that one religious tradition shouldn’t dominate others in public spaces really change the fact that our calendar year and system of holidays are predicated around the one named for the birth of Jesus Christ?

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Could Monkeys Write Shakespeare? 

 

Can I fly?  Can a duck shoot a shotgun?  Is a bike still a bike without wheels?

 

I could list a bunch of other stupid questions but this one has more importance.

 

For some time now the evolutionary proof involving random typing by monkeys in an attempt to recreate Shakespeare’s works has been ongoing.  The basic idea is that enough monkeys with enough time and enough chances could produce the same works as Shakespeare. 

 

Enter this story on BBC.COM:

“Virtual monkeys write Shakespeare

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There is probably no topic that Christians are more known for these days than hating gays.  The vocal minority has done a great job proving this out and the not-so vocal majority of Christians have done very little to disprove it.  We are known for largely hateful rhetoric, singling out one lifestyle to vilify and ignoring the ones Jesus really spoke against – pride, anger, materialism, idolatry, selfishness.

The church has wasted its time fighting gay marriage.  Why wasted?  Because I can tell you as a constitutional law expert that no matter what voters decide, the issue will be resolved by state and federal courts that for the most part don’t care what voters think.  So the church has spent millions fighting something that in the end they have no control over.  It’s like fighting a tsunami with a bucket – or millions of them.  It won’t work but you will die in the process.   

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9/12 matters because it is Monday morning and I have already forgotten. 

 

It is hard to believe that I can return to the ordinary affairs of the day without even a blink of the eye, already violating the solemn and ubiquitous slogan – We Shall Never Forget. It’s not that I have forgotten 9/11 or everyone that was directly and indirectly impacted in profound and subtle ways. I have already forgotten that today should not be the same.

 

As I watched show after show over the weekend where survivors from the buildings were interviewed, first-responders recounted their feelings, or those touched by the tragedy explained the impact – several compelling threads emerged.

 

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Simple Giving – Do the Easiest Thing First

 

As we come to 9-11 it is easy to think big but it is better to think small.

 

Inevitably when I speak on my book Humanitarian Jesus the question comes up – “How do we actually start giving ourselves away?  How do we start serving our neighbor?”

 

I think the problem is that when we try to tackle slavery, water, poverty, or massive trauma like 9-11, Katrina, etc. it is difficult to find a foot-hold.  We see the “big guys” making huge impact.  Million dollar gifts, bailing out on life and diving in as a volunteer, shifting giant organizations to a new focus.  These are all very good – but not the fundamental basis of humanitarian investment.

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Churches Capitalizing on 9-11? Seriously? Stay Classy San Diego

 

By the time you are done reading this you should be offended.  You should either ask “How dare they for doing that?” or “How dare you for writing that?”  If you have neither response then check yourself for a pulse. 

 

It would be hard to write anything new about 9-11 on the eve of the 10 year anniversary of that horrible day that triggered a horrible week and resulted in a horrible era in American Life.  When I mentioned it to my wife she said, “Don’t write about 9-11. Write about 9-10 or 9-12. It’s not just about 9-11.”  She is correct.

 

I was on a flight from London to Los Angeles on 9-10.  I awoke on 9-11 because my brother, deployed with the Navy at the time in Spain, called to ask if we made it. Made what? Turn on the TV he said.  In a jet legged fog somewhere between consciousness and that early morning dream state where you are awake and asleep at the same time I watched the towers come down.   You probably did too so I can stop here on that theme. I still can’t watch the video without tearing up.

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