Good intentions

I’ve seen this meme (and others like it) all over social media. Will using what I would characterize as a fly-by, broad-stroked, invocation leave a lasting impact? Better, I believe, to get to the source of the unkindnesses with which we have marginalized each other. Why not get real? It’ll cost us in the dispensing of forgiveness, sourced from the love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness extended to us all by Jesus Christ. Receive it, then pass it along to those who have wronged you. Accept the fact that some folks will need more. Give it. Be generous. Lavish it, if you have to. And finally, keep no record of wrongs…that’s what the power of God’s love makes possible. Then, hopefully, as much as it is possible to live at peace with one another, we can move on…together. 

Blessed Assurance

And in other news…last night we passed by a house on the lake road where a Christmas tree gleamed and glittered from its picture window. What a statement of hope the sight of it spoke to me.


Too early, you say? It would be for some, like us, who still go to the local tree farm and buy a fresh tree. It could be the folks who live there are like so many who put up their tree before Thanksgiving. But further down the road, I wondered if they might be feeling these words that came to mind from the musical “Mame”…


“For I’ve grown a little leaner,
Grown a little colder,
Grown a little sadder,
Grown a little older,
And I need a little angel
Sitting on my shoulder;
I need a little Christmas now.” (“Mame”)


For whatever reason the tree was there in the window, shining in all its glory, it could be you are, as I am, from time to time feeling these words. Seeing that tree was, for me, the assurance that Christmas is still as planned as it was at creation. God knew we’d need one 2,000+ years ago and considering the struggles, suffering, and loss that have taken place in 2020, He knows we need one even more this year…