2013

It's now midnight (well 12:26 but you get the idea).  We can now turn our calendar (as an aside, I hate spelling the word calendar.  I never know where to put the e and the a) over to a brand new year.  A new year that some people--albeit very very foolish people--thought we would never see.  While I never particularly put a lot of faith in any doomsday prophesies, it still provides a nice illustration whenever the doomsday comes and goes.  It helps to remind us that each and every day is a gift.  We are living on borrowed time.  So as we close the books on 2012, may we embrace all that 2013 has to offer.  May we seize every opportunity thrown our way.  May we make new friends and deepen our old relationships.  Here's to a wonderful and prosperous 2013.

And So This Is Christmas

We've been waiting for four weeks.

Four long weeks.

Four dark weeks.

Four violent weeks.

Four weeks full of death and despair.

Four weeks full of innocent men, women, and children being gunned down.

Four weeks culminating in yesterday's slaying of the men we trust to protect us.

It has been a tragic month.

To be perfectly honest, this month has just left me asking, why?

Why is there so much senseless destruction?

Why were these lives taken so soon?

Why can't we feel safe anymore?

It's been a long Advent...but now it's over.

Yea Lord we greet thee! Born this happy morning!

Jesus to thee be all glory given!  Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!

O come let us adore him!  Christ, our Lord!

And yet I can't help but wonder, how can we proclaim this to be a joyous day when our brothers and sisters in Portland, Newtown, and Webster are still mourning their losses?

Jesus came to redeem us...to liberate us from injustice.  Where is their justice?

Where is their hope?

Where is their peace?

Where is their joy?

Where is their love?

No amount of theodicy can bring back their losses, so coming up with anything to say at all is proving to be difficult (hence the jumbled up nature of this post)

However, there has been one mantra running through my head to keep me sane during these dark times.  It comes from a poem penned by Henry Wadsforth Longfellow in 1863.  Written during the Civil War, all hope appeared to be lost.  The country was broken in twain.  Sons were fighting against their fathers.  Friends were fighting against friends.  It was very easy to think during that time that there would be no peace on earth.  But Longfellow writes:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

         God is not dead, nor doth he sleep!

         The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth good-will to men

God is not dead, nor doth he sleep.

God is not dead, nor doth he sleep.

The right shall prevail.

Christmas isn't the end of a journey, but the beginning.

A new beginning, which can breathe into us new hope.

Christ is born.  Christ is born indeed.  Alleluia!

Christ is born, and he will grow up to heal lepers.

Give sight to the blind.

Raise the dead.

And one day, wipe every tear from every eye.

Merry Christmas!

That God Has Remembered Them Video

Many thanks to Rachel Ternes for filming this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxH6BFlBxZI&

27

Oh God, who mourned with the oppressed in the exile, we cry out to you on this dark day
We cry out for we know that the world we live in is far from what you intended
We cry out for we feel the darkness surrounding us getting darker
We cry out for we see innocent lives taken from us—innocent children, innocent teachers
We cry out for we find it harder and harder to see your light
Hear our mourning cry
Accept into your care the souls of those who we lost today
Grant them peace and rest
Comfort those those who have lost sons and daughters and loved ones on this tragic day
May they feel your presence and love
Be with our nation in this time
May we all work together until we know the day when swords are beaten into ploughshares
We pray all this in the name of your son, Jesus, who wept with Mary and Marsha
Amen

The Finals Song

Take the final exam one,
Now the testing has begun
All night we studied long and hard
Hoping the test won't catch us off guard

Finals, finals are my plight
Sweating under fluorescent lights
The urge to nap I have to fight
My professors are way too uptight

Write the paper page by page
Twenty years, I feel I have aged
Turn to Wikipedia for help
Look at the clock and let out a yelp

Finals, finals are my plight
Sweating under fluorescent lights
The urge to nap I have to fight
My professors are way too uptight

See what finals do to my brain
Thinking creates way too much pain
I can see the sun start to rise
This week will cause my early demise

Finals, finals are my plight
Sweating under fluorescent lights
The urge to nap I have to fight
My professors are way too uptight

That God Has Remembered Them

Waiting is a harsh reality of life. Whether we find ourselves waiting for the light to change or for peace on Earth, waiting forces us to relinquish control over a situation. Therefore we usually greet times of waiting with anxiety and stress. But Baruch ben-Neriah tells Jews living in the second temple period of Jerusalem not to mourn in times of waiting, but to rejoice! Good times are coming! God has remembered them, and God has remembered you!

In this time of Advent, may we remember to wait with joy for the coming of our Lord, Emmanuel.

Full text of the sermon is at this link. A video will (hopefully) be up shortly.
http://www.aumethodists.org/worship/sermons/student-sermons/that-god-has-remembered-them/

Many thanks to Rev Phillip Phaneuf for his insight on this sermon, and to Rev Mark Schaefer and the AU United Methodist-Protestant Community for the opportunity to preach this sermon.

Mea Culpa

So the past couple of days have been pretty hectic and I wasn't able to post anything yesterday. My bad. To make it up, I'll be posting a link to my sermon that I preached last night at Kay and I'll post a vid of it.

More to come.

Advent

Today we will wait
Emmanuel will come down
And ransom us all

Buddy the elf...

So I was planning on posting everyday during advent. It doesn't work so well when you forget that you started a blog (I'm a real winner). Anyways, "today's" post (it's still Tuesday on the west cost) is going to be short. I watched Elf today for the first time in a long time, and so today, I'm going to answer the classic line "Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?"


It's purple...but that's not why this blog is that color.

Twelve Stories Up

For the past...umm...x months (however many months it's been since August....I'm a music major. So sue me) I've been adjusting to life in an apartment. And aside from the joys of paying bills every month, it's been a real improvement over living in a dorm. I have my own living space (albeit I share it with three other guys, but still). I don't have to follow the rules and regulations of a dorm. I have so much more space. Its left me feeling larger than life. I'm a real person now.

Until tonight anyways.

You see, it was 70 degrees today in Washington, DC. That's right. 70 degrees. In December. 70 degrees (I cannot stress that enough).

So when I got home tonight, we had our balcony doors open to try to get the air flowing. I then proceeded to ask my apartmentmate (that's a word right?) if the window in his room was open. Turns out that it wasn't, and he went to open it and low and behold, there was no protective screen in the window. (We've lived in this apartment for...however many months...and we've just figured this out)

Anyways...

We live twelve stories up.

When you look down from a window where there is literally nothing protecting you that is twelve stories up, things are put into perspective.

Looking down from twelve stories up, leaves you feeling pretty small. And you know what? That's ok. From that height, you realize that it's not all about you and you can take in the majesty and grandeur of the creation around us.

And that's pretty cool.

Happy New Year!

Why am I wishing you a happy new year?

Well we've been celebrating Christmas since October, isn't it time to start celebrating New Years?
Just kidding...well only sort of.

We are now one day into Advent (I was going to start this yesterday...whoops...hey it's still December 2 in the Central Time Zone right?) which is the beginning of the liturgical year for Christians (is Advent akin to Rosh Hashanah?  I'll have to look into that).

Like Lent, Advent is a season of penitence that takes place through the four Sundays before Christmas as we wait for the birth of Jesus (but you all ready knew that).

And so to ring in the new liturgical year, I decided to start this blog.  Mostly cause I've started countless blogs that never seem to get off the ground and dammit I want to keep this up.  Advent is nothing if it isn't about hope.

On this blog, you'll find general musings from topics that range from Wesleyan theology to Star Wars and everything in between.

So here I am, wishing you a happy new year, and I welcome you to my little corner of the internet.  Sit back, relax, and make yourself at home.

Happy New Year!

And so until we meet again dear friends, may God hold you safely in the palm of God's hand