'Twas the Week After Christmas By: Rev. Tom Butts

AN ENCOURAGING WORD, written for publication in the Monroe Journal, December 27, 2012, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, Pastor Emeritus, First United Methodist Church, Monroeville, Alabama.

'TWAS THE WEEK AFTER CHRISTMAS

Now that the "Big Day" is over and we are trying to get back to normal, whatever that may be, perhaps we should try to figure out how to keep some of Christmas in our lives. People tend to feel "let down" after such an intense celebration.  It takes intentional effort to keep the spirit of Christmas alive when it is over. So many things mitigate against it.  Several years ago Howard Thurman wrote a free-verse poem about taking Christmas beyond December 25th.

"When the song of the angel is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home. When the shepherds are back with their flocks;

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people, to make music in the heart..."

Most of the baubles we got or gave are soon gone, forgotten or stored out of sight in the attic. What we actually keep from the season are the intangibles. There is the spirit of excited joy we experienced/shared with the children who were too young and innocent to worry about mundane things like paying off credit cards and balancing the budget. There remains the joy of seeing the older children come home from college or distant work places, and seeing how they have grown and changed (hopefully for the better). There is the lingering memory of having extended members of our family of origin get together to swap grandiose tales of how things were when they were growing up. For many years my family of origin got together at the old home place where we grew up during the depression. We would celebrate the fact that we were all still alive and of sound mind (relatively speaking). We would recite embellished and polished gems of oral tradition about the good old days which were so hard -- and so good. But times change. Death and distance have left my family of origin, and perhaps yours, with only the memories we struggle to keep.

Christmas is not a happy time for everyone. There are people who, for unspoken reasons, are glad that Christmas is over. They are weary of pretending to be happy when deep down they are sad. They have felt trapped by the common expectations of the season and the expectations of others, and have feigned as best they could a "holiday spirit". We all know someone for whom this was the first Christmas after some significant loss such as death, divorce or one of the many other ways you can lose someone or something. There are those whose historical losses, failures and feelings of brokenness float to the surface at Christmas time, and they find themselves reliving some of the worst experiences of their past. And, then there are also some whose memories of "Christmases past" are just not happy. Be gentle and careful when you relate to people who morph into modern-day Scrooges. There are more of them than you think, and the reasons for their seasonal brittleness may be more complex than you can imagine.

This week between Christmas and the beginning of a new year is a good time to remember resolutions and promises made to ourselves, God, and other people. Did you keep the promises, or will you need to try again? Let me tell you a story of someone who kept his promise.

It was the day after Christmas at a church in San Francisco. As the pastor of the church was looking at the Nativity scene in the narthex and getting ready to store it until the next year, he noticed that the baby Jesus figure was missing from the manger. He went outside and saw a little boy pulling a red wagon down the street. The baby Jesus figure was in the red wagon. He walked up to the child and asked, "Son, where did you get that baby Jesus?” The little boy said, "I got him from the church." "Why did you take him?", the pastor asked. The little boy replied, "Well about a week before Christmas I prayed and told Jesus that if he would bring me a red wagon for Christmas, I would give him a ride!”

May we all be so faithful to our promises -- each in our own way.

copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

Who Started This Christmas Business

AN ENCOURAGING WORD written for publication in the Monroe Journal, December 13, 2012, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, Pastor Emeritus, First United Methodist Church, Monroeville, Alabama

 

The Christmas season is a cheerful time for most people, but there are frustrations. Even people who tend to keep life manageable occasionally encounter some unsettling and frustrating experiences in the hustle and bustle of the season.

There are people for whom Christmas provokes deep feelings of sadness. It is a time for remembering, and not all our Christmas memories are happy. For some it is the first Christmas after a sad experience -- death of a loved one, a divorce, etc. When you are expected to look and act happy, but you are sad, it is easy to forget the reason for the season, and pray it will soon be over.

I could offer tons of conventional advice on how to keep meaning in the season. I am a professional at offering conventional advice about many things, but after more than a half-hundred years in an advisory capacity, I have come to the conclusion that most people already know more conventional wisdom than they care to use, and that most people for whom Christmas is an unhappy time can find someone to help them through, if they are interested in help. But let's face it, there are people who actually enjoy being unhappy. Their lives and their relationships are defined by their negative view of life. Don't try to cure their condition. You will end up being caught up in it. Just avoid them, if you can.

When money is limited and demands (or perceived demands) are unlimited, it is frustrating. When you feel obligated to match gift for gift. dinner for dinner, Christmas card for Christmas card -- when you feel compelled to attend and give so many parties, when you focus on the business of Christmas, it is easy to lose sight of the heart of Christmas. And if we are not careful the glitter, the gifts, the food, the parties, and the over-the-top commercialization of Christmas will leave us physically tired, spiritually empty, emotionally over-spent, and perhaps financially broke. It is a sad critique of the holiday set aside to honor one who taught us of love, peace, and kindness.

When you become stressed out humor helps, and there is always humor to be found as children begin to sense some suspicious inconsistancies in the Santa Claus myth. One child climbed up on the lap of Santa Claus at a department store and shared his wish list. Later that day, in another store, there was Santa again, who when he saw this child said, "Ho, ho, ho, what would you like for Christmas this year?" With a puzzled and suspicious look on his face the child admonished Santa, "You really need to write these things down!" When my grand neice, Callie, was about 8 years old her parents gave in to her barrage of suspicious questions and confessed to her the truth about Santa Claus. This bright and perceptive little girl then asked her parents: "What else have you been lying to me about?" The weak effort to continue the myth beyond credulity can be humorous. A father said to his young daughter, "Look at all the presents Santa left for you!", to which the child replied, "Dad, this looks like your handwriting". Dad said, "Well, I let him borrow my pen". Daughter pushed on, "That wouldn't change his handwriting". "Well" said Dad "we also had a couple of glasses of wine together" Look for the humor as well as the holiness in Christmas.

There was a mother who was Christmas shopping with her two young children. After three hours of looking at row after row of toys and hearing them ask for everything they saw on those shelves, she was feeling the overwhelming pressure that so many feel during the holiday season. She was relieved when she finally made it to the elevator.

When the elevator doors opened there was already a crowd in the car. Determined to get out of the department store as soon as possible, she pushed her way into the crowded car, dragging her two kids and her packages with her. When the doors closed she couldn't take it anymore. She blurted out in an angry voice, "Whoever started this whole Christmas business should be found, strung up and shot!"

From the back of the elevator a quiet and calm voice responded, "Don't worry, we have already crucified him".

The rest of the trip down the elevator was so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. Hmmmmmm

copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

The Last Lick; Kathy Style

Yesterday, I published an article written by Rev. Tom Butts entitled “The Last Lick”. It reminded me of a personal story of my own on this subject.

I was raised in a highly verbal family, led by two very intelligent quick-witted parents. So, it is really no mystery that my siblings and I were also well-versed in quick witted replies. Lively conversations were quite common, with zingers flying fast and furious through the air.

 I think that my mom and I were the worst.

 “You two just go at each other sideways,” my father said one day. And on another occasion, she and I were going at it, and he announced that he was leaving for work. We continued with our debate, (which of course, is a polite word for argument), without slowing down to bid him adieu. He repeated this statement two or three times to no response from us, when he finally said, “Well, aren't ya’ll going to tell me to be careful?!” We  stopped arguing, I mean debating, looked at him and burst out laughing. We chimed in telling him to be careful and enjoy his night. Satisfied that he had stopped the lively exchange and gotten some attention for himself, he departed. The altercation was over. Well, it is hard to be mad when you are laughing.

Home wasn't the only place that we learned our quick verbal self-defense skills. School was another place that this art was honed. “Cut down wars” were a favorite past-time at lunch and before and after school. We were good at them, and it wasn't unusual for our teachers to jump in, or even start them. “You people have diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain!” one teacher liked to tell us. We were used to it, so we would laugh with her. Recently forgetting that everybody had not had Mrs. Carden’s seventh grade English class with me, I said that about someone else recently and he was highly offended. I really didn't mean to insult him terribly; I was just joking around with him like Mrs. Carden used to do with us. Oops!

I was always quick to pop back at someone who would try to insult me and my personal motto was to get them worse than they had gotten me. Such was the case one evening at work when I worked in a foundry. A number of new supervisors had been hired in anticipation of opening a new plant. Then, the bottom dropped out of the economy, orders were scaled back significantly and we were unable to open the new plant and had to cut back on production at the existing plant. The obvious result was that supervisors would have to be laid off. ( Which is a polite word for fired).  We knew that some of us would get the proverbial ax  and were discussing which ones of us it would be. Just for the sake of luck, I made the comment that it might be me. (If I didn't think it would be me, then Murphy’s law says that it probably would; but as long as I could admit my vulnerability, then maybe it wouldn't be me. That was my thinking anyway.) Then, one particular supervisor, whose name I won’t divulge said, “No, just because we don’t like you doesn't mean we can all vote to get rid of you!” I had a quick comeback to that very rude statement, but was unable to deliver it, because he hurriedly walked off. Not to be outdone, I waited about half an hour to give him time to forget, and then approached him. I said, “ I might be the one nobody likes, but at least I’m not the one on my third marriage!.

Feeling superior, I looked at him and saw that he had a look on his face that looked like I had just slapped him. I thought he was going to cry. Immediately feeling terribly, I realized that I had indeed crossed a line that I shouldn't have. He didn't say a word. He had no comeback for that, but actually I felt so bad and was so sorry that I had said it. I regretted saying something so cruel.

Actually, what I didn't know, but later found out, was that he was on his third marriage, but his current wife was about to leave him. And not only was he divorced twice, but both times, his wives had left him and filed for divorce. This story seems so horrible to me now, that it is actually hard for me to write.

And I had never been married at the time; no one can give parenting advice like the person who has never been a parent and no one can give marital advice like the one who has never been married. Once I got married, like 75% of marriages today, it too ended in divorce. Having this experience now has taught me not to throw stones at others.

He had hurt me with his cruel words, but I had hurt him much worse, and no claim to winning an argument was worth that. I decided then to never say anything like that to anyone again, even if it meant that I would lose an argument, or look dumb or stupid or any of those things. There are some things that mean more in the long run. I have held to that decision for the most part. There are of course some exceptions, but leaving people with their dignity means more than being one-up on someone.

I realized too, that the words not said are words that don’t have to be retracted. My newer motto is “ I've never had to apologize for something I didn't say.” And that holds true. Whether it is physical or verbal, Rev. Butts is right. Sometimes, it is just better to let the other person have the last lick.

_______________________________________________________

Thanksgiving Challenge and Joy Dare

Today, I am thankful for:

347. The cold weather
348. Successful surgery for a friend
349. The amazing recovery of Joyce Boelsche
350. Psalm 91.
351. Love
352. 24-hour grocery stores.
353. The birth of healthy babies.
354. My readers

opyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins

The Last Lick By: Rev. Tom Butts

AN ENCOURAGING WORD, written for publication in the Monroe Journal, December 6, 2012, by Dr. Thomas Lane Butts, Pastor Emeritus, First United Methodist Church, Monroeville, Alabama

THE LAST LICK

A little girl came in from the playground at school one day sobbing as if her heart would break. The teacher asked the child if she was hurt, to which she said, "No". "Then why in the world are you crying?" asked the teacher. Between sobs the little girl said, "Susan hit me and the bell rang before I could hit her back".

The urge to hit back, "get even" with people who have hurt us is powerful. It has broken up friendships, disrupted families and even started wars. We want to have the "last word" in an argument and the "last lick" in a fight. Nothing is more fragile than our pride. But anybody can get in the "last word" or the "last lick" and keep the battle going. Only the strong and most mature can absorb the last lick or the last word and end the battle.

If there is anything that the world, our country and our community sorely needs, it is people who have enough maturity and grace to allow someone else to have the last word or the last lick. Having the strength not to strike back may cause momentary pain, but after the initial blow to pride, that pain is transformed into strength. Conversely, those who have the last word initially feel very good about their conquest, but after that initial flush of pride, last words turn into ashes in one's mouth.

One of the most notable achievements of Jesus, for which he is remembered as one of uncommon strength, was how he let the cruel world have the last lick. Even the hardened Roman soldiers on the execution team which carried out the crucifixion looked up at him as he died and began to wonder who had won, them or him. Today, there is no doubt about who won. But, what if Jesus had insisted on the last lick or the last word?

It takes real maturity to deal with conflicts in such way as to bring lasting peace. In addition to all the theological understandings of Jesus, he is also a noble and notable model for us in dealing with verbal and physical conflict.

Test the strength of your character today - let someone else have the last word, and if necessary let someone else get in the last lick.

copyright 2012 by Kathy Robbins