Blog

First Saturday of Advent

Originally posted Tuesday, November 26, 2016

Their redemption was incomplete. They almost had it, but alas, their commitment was not 100 percent and they fell short.

With tongue in cheek I’m talking about the 10 college students seen on national television on Saturday afternoon who painted their torsos with purple and gold paint. No doubt they’d planned it well, spent time painting each other, and then they’d gone to the stadium to line up side-by-side and spell out the word REDEMPTION. But it was cold and the student wearing the N put on a brown coat. When the TV cameras swung by, the word was incomplete. It was REDEMPTIO_.

Seriously though, Sunday began Advent, the liturgical season when we watch and wait for the coming of the redeemer, the one who was sent to save us from our sin and weakness. The one who kept the commitment that God had made to all humankind and that was foretold through the words of the prophets. The one who let himself be scorned, stripped and scourged. The one who did not grow cold to God’s promise and did not hide under a brown coat. The one who completed our redemption. Thanks be to God.

First Friday of Advent

Originally posted Tuesday, October 25, 2011

My writing-for-pay work takes me to some unusual places. Yesterday I was talking to a man in Michigan about the new energy-efficient lights his company has developed for stadiums and arenas. As he said, existing light systems “can really make the meter spin.” Going back over my interview notes, a quote caught my attention: “We’re getting lumens out at the end of lamp life that are equal to those at the beginning of lamp life.”

Continue reading “Illumination”

First Thursday of Advent

From Wilshire Advent Devotions 2009

Luke 2:1-4: In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.  (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.

There’s something magic about “coming home” for Christmas – the anticipation building with every mile until at last you burst in the door and find yourself in the warmth of family and friends. The first opportunity I had for such a trip, I decided to do it big.

During Christmas break from college I rode a Greyhound bus from Dallas to Tucumcari, New Mexico, to join my older brother on a long, winding drive home for the holidays. In the span of four days and a thousand miles we saw some sights, visited friends, bought some gifts and horsed around. We survived ice and snow, too little sleep, too much fun, and a blowout on my brother’s pick-up truck.

Continue reading “Coming Home”