Sesame Street had a skit one time of the old fairy tale of the princess and the frog. In the Sesame Street version the princess kissed the frog, and then turned into a frog herself. It is closer to the Christmas story. God became one of us.
Category Archives: Food for Thought
Ideas, stories, quotes, and short essays or selections from books that stimulate thoughtful consideration of a topic or spiritual principle.
Christ Has Come, the Light of the World
“Christ has come, the Light of the world. Long ages may yet elapse before
His beams have reduced the world to order and beauty, and clothed a
purified humanity with light as with a garment. But He has come:
The Revealer of the snares and chasms that lurk in darkness,
The Rebuker of every evil thing that prowls by night,
The Stiller of the storm-winds of passion,
The Quickener of all that is wholesome,
The Adorner of all that is beautiful,
The Reconciler of contradictions, The Harmonizer of discords,
The Healer of diseases, The Savior from sin.
He has come:
The Torch of Truth, the Anchor of Hope, the Pillar of Faith,
The Rock for strength, the Refuge for security,
The Fountain for refreshment, the Vine for gladness,
The Rose for beauty, The Lamb for tenderness,
The Friend for counsel, the Brother for love.
Jesus has trod the world.
The trace of the Divine footsteps will never be obliterated.”
Author: Peter Bayne- “The Treasure Chest”
If Jesus Were Born Today
Child advocates would remove the child from the custody of his mother when they discovered she was shacking with a guy (not the child’s father) in a barn. In most jurisdictions that would constitute child neglect. Of course, Mary would have an underpaid court appointed attorney to represent her in the dependent-neglect proceeding, and Joseph would be out of luck once it was determined that paternity could not be established within a reasonable degree of medical certainty through blood or DNA testing (97% probablilty that Joe was the dad is sufficient, but absent divine intervention, that couldn’t happen, hmmm?). He would be excluded from juvenile court as a stranger to the proceeding and investigated for possible sexual deviance (all those oxen and asses around), and he would be told that he had no standing to object since he was not the natural father of the child and was not yet married to Mary (by their own admissions they had not yet consummated their union).
The Division of Children and Familly Services would ask the court to order Mary to take parenting classes, and the Court would order that homemaker services be provided as well, since obviously Mary can’t keep house properly (the place where the DHS workers forund the child was kept remarkably like a barn). Mary would be allowed to have one visit with Jesus per week at the Centers for Youth and Families. The visit would be one hour long, and supervised by a therapist since Jesus would no doubt be put in therapeutic foster care to prevent psychological damage resulting from the horrible lack of civilization to which he had been exposed at such a tender age.
At the eighteen month dispositional hearing, the court would consider terminating parental rights because of Mary’s refusal to bring a paternity suit against Jesus’ true biological father (or even to identify him to the satisfaction of the Court). The Court would be appalled at the life choices Mary would have made: she would have completed her marriage to Joseph (that suspected sexual deviant) and had more children by him, which was obviously contrary to Jesus’ best interest.
Since Mary and Joseph had fled the jurisdiction with Jesus once to escape encounters with the authorities, they would determine that Mary and Joe had nefarious plans to abscond with the Ward of the State to Egypt again, where they would possibly engage in dangerous and illegal activities with him. Parental rights would be terminated, and Jesus would be put up for adoption.
He would be adopted by the Herods, a well-connected and politically powerful family, who have been searching for just such a child as Jesus. Of course, Jesus will die in the custody of his adoptive family, because that’s all they wanted him for in the first place. Social services will NOT have intervened prior to his death because the state social workers could never imagine someone as highly placed as the Herods exploiting children or torturing them to death. The political ramifications for the Herods would have been too severe. In all likelihood, the social service agencies would cover up the death as one occurring from accident, and Herod’s good name will be preserved.
Like a Stable
Human nature is like a stable inhabited by the ox of passion and the ass of prejudice; animals which take up a lot of room and which I suppose most of us are feeding on the quiet. And it is there between them, pushing them out, that Christ must be born and in their very manger he must be laid – and they will be the first to fall on their knees before him. Sometimes Christians seem far nearer to those animals than to Christ in his simple poverty, self-abandoned to God.
Author: Evelyn Underhill
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Christmas Gifts for Those who Have Everything
“Dollar for dollar, we are able to buy more things and make more things for more of our people than any other society. Ours has been described by sociologists as ‘the’ consumer society. And we’ve got the goods and the dispositions to buy them to prove it….
In order to keep our incredibly successful system working, there is something very important we Americans have to do. Buy! We have to buy the stuff that our system produces. And we have to keep on buying. The megatons of consumer goods that flow out of our factories annually must be purchased fast and furiously. If they are not, factories will close, workers will become unemployed, and everything will stop. There is no doubt that the continued success of our way of life requires that we Americans become unrestrained consumers.
But there is a major problem in all of this. And that is that those of us who have the money to buy all of the stuff that our factories produce already have everything we need. I didn’t say, ‘Everything we want.’ I said, ‘Everything we need.’ There is no question about it. We have become a people whose needs are more than gratified; our essential hungers are more than satiated.
If people like you and me, whose needs have already been met, are going to keep America going, we are going to have to buy what we don’t need. And we are going to have to buy what we don’t need in larger and larger quantities. As absurd as all of this may seem, the survival of our way of life depends on this.
Just think about last Christmas season. Your biggest problem was probably not figuring out where you would get enough money to buy presents for family members and friends. Instead, it was trying to figure out what to buy for people who had ‘everything.’ The answer to that problem should have been self-evident. What you should buy for those who have everything, is ‘nothing.’ But you didn’t have the guts to pull it off, did you?
No!
Instead you went up and down the aisles of department stores having anxiety attacks. Panic-stricken, you searched, yea, even prayed, that somebody somewhere had invented some new things that nobody needs so you could buy them for people who have everything. This is not an absurd description of a reasonable world. It is a rational description of an absurd world.”
Source: Tony Campolo- “Carpe Diem-Seize the Day” (1994, Word Publishing)
1 Corinthians 13 for Christmas
If I speak in the tongues of Christmas materialism and greed but have not love, I am only a tinny Christmas song or an out of tune choir.
If I have the gift of knowing what Aunt Agatha will give me this year and can even understand last year’s present, and if I have the faith that I won’t get yet more socks and ties this year but have not love, I am nothing.
If I clear out the house and give everything to charity and my credit cards are snapped in half but have not love, what can I possibly gain?
Love is patient when the fourth store you’ve tried doesn’t have a bottle garden.
Love is kind and lets the couple with only a few items go in front of you and your bulging shopping cart.
Love does not envy your friend who gets mega-presents from everybody.
Love does not boast about the £400 bike, the Xbox 360, the TV, VCR, and computer your dad gave you.
Love does not attempt to out buy, out wrap, and out give the rest of the family just to impress.
Love doesn’t cut Aunt Flo off your Christmas card list because she forgot you last year.
Love is not self-seeking and leaves a copy of your Christmas list in every room of the house.
Love is not easily angered when the young girl at the checkout takes forever because she is just temporary staff.
Love doesn’t keep remembering how many times your mum forgets you don’t like Brussels sprouts.
Love does not delight in the commercial bandwagon but rejoices with the truth of a baby born in the stable.
Love always protects the family from Christmas hype.
Love always trusts that the hiding places for presents will remain secret for another year.
Love always hopes that this year more neighbours will drop in to your open house coffee morning.
Love always perseveres until the cards are written, the presents all bought, the shopping done, and the Christmas cake iced.
Toys may break, socks wear thin but love never fails.
Where there is the feeling of the presents to guess their contents, and mum going on about being good so Father Christmas will come, and searching through the cupboards to find your hidden presents, they will all stop.
For we think we know what we are getting, and we hope we know what we are getting but when Christmas Day arrives all will be revealed.
When I was a child I talked with big wide-open eyes about Christmas, thought that Christmas was all about me, I reasoned that Jesus should have been born more often. When I became an adult, I forgot the joy, wonder, and excitement of this special time.
Now we just hear about the angels, shepherds, and wise men, then we shall see them all the time. Now I know as much as the Bible says about the first Christmas, then I shall know just how many wise men there were and where they came from.
Now three things remain to be done:
To have faith that the baby born in a stable is the Son of God.
To hope that the true message of Christmas will not get discarded with the wrapping paper and unwanted gifts.
And the most important to have a love for others like the one that God has for us.
Copyright 2001 Claire Jordan (caleb@eurobell.co.uk).
Permission is granted to send this to others, but not for commercial purposes.
Source: www.mikeysFunnies.com
Blessings
Today I stood at my window and cursed the pouring rain,
Today a desperate farmer prayed for his fields of grain
My weekend plans are ruined, it almost makes me cry
While the farmer lifts his arms and blesses the clouded sky.
The alarm went off on Monday and I cursed my work routine,
Next door a laid off mechanic feels the empty pockets of his jeans.
I can’t wait for my vacation, some time to take for me,
He doesn’t know tonight how he’ll feed his family.
I cursed my leaky roof and the grass I need to mow,
A homeless man downtown checks for change in the telephone.
I need a new car, mine is getting really old,
He huddles in a doorway, seeking shelter from the cold.
With blessings I’m surrounded, the rain, a job, a home,
Though my eyes are often blinded by the things I think I own.
Singing Birds
Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
Source: Henry Van Dyke, Bits & Pieces, March 31, 1994, Page 16
Postage Stamp
Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.
–Josh Billings
Nothing
It is almost as presumptuous to think you can do nothing as to think you can do everything.
–Phillips Brooks