The Spirit Of Christmas

Once upon a time Mary-Jo was watching her favourite television show when Famous Celebrity entered her lounge room in a blast of noise and light.

“Greetings Highly Valued Consumer” he announced, “I represent Faceless Corporation who has chosen to intrude into your life”

Mary-Jo was annoyed, and regretted that she was not watching a taped show so she could fast-forward the ads.

“Do not change the channel.” said Famous Celebrity, “You will log onto E-bay and order a fat white-haired old man. You shall name him Santa. He will be world renowned, and a tool of Faceless Corporation. Faceless Corporation will let him rule from late October until the end of the January Sales, and thus he shall dominate our budgets forever.”

“How can this be?” Mary-Jo answered. “I am yet to purchase a modem and cannot afford a broadband connection.”

Famous Celebrity answered, “The Free Market will overwhelm you and Faceless Corporation will entice you into your modem purchase and broadband connection through the help of High Interest Plastic Card.”

“I am a willing consumer,” said Mary-Jo, “I will buy what you say.”

So Famous Celebrity left her lounge room and after some news headlines her program resumed.

When Seth her fiancé discovered that Mary-Jo had purchased computer equipment without his input, he decided to break the engagement quietly to avoid embarrassment, and out of respect for his elaborate sound system which he feared she may now dare meddle with. Yet his Intuitive Air-Conditioning revealed to him that Mary-Jo had been enticed by Faceless Corporation and the Free Market to purchase Santa on E-bay so he could save the world from Deep Thinking and Meaningful Relationships and replace them with Spending Sprees. So Seth married Mary-Jo despite her modem purchase, but he did not use her computer until Santa arrived in the post.

Unfortunately because Greedy Speculator had inflated land prices beyond reason, Parasitic Proprietor decided to cash in and sell their house. So Mary-Jo and Seth were required to leave before the package arrived. Finding rents now impossibly high they were forced to move into a Brick-Box High-Rise in Suburban Wasteland. Thankfully for postal-redirect Santa arrived safely soon after. Mary-Jo clothed him in a red ski suit from Random Charity Shop and sat him on the roof, surrounded by flashing lights for all to see.

Far away in Commercial Centre, Marketing Committee was working long into the night studying consumer behaviour. They saw bright lights out the window illuminating the night sky like a neon rainbow. “Could this be the flash of brilliance we have been seeking all these years that will make consumers empty their pockets at Faceless Corporation’s feet?” they thought as they jumped into their European Cars and sped towards Suburban Wasteland. On climbing all the stairs to Mary-Jo and Seth’s apartment they visited Santa on the roof and brought him gifts of Lucrative Endorsement Deals.

Nearby some Underpaid Fast-Food Restaurant Staff where muttering “Do you want fries with that?” late into the night when Obnoxious Comedian spoke to them over a Try-Hard-Hip Radio Program, and Predictable Manufactured Music filled their ears. Obnoxious Comedian said to them that Santa had been delivered into Capitalist Society as the new tool of Faceless Corporation, and they could find him on Suburban Wasteland Brick Box High-Rise roof. All Obnoxious Comedian’s Obnoxious Comedian buddies agreed.

“Faceless Corporation is the coolest” they said “Buy his products and your life will be perfect.”

The Obnoxious Comedians finished their time slot, so the Underpaid Fast-Food Restaurant Staff left their cash registers and deep fryers and went to find Mary-Jo and Seth’s apartment, and Santa on the roof. When they had seen Santa they told all their friends about him. Everone was amazed, and followed Santa to Monopolising Department Store like brainless drones to spend their hard earned cash.

Hence the world was saved from Deep Thinking and Meaningful Relationships, and the peace, freedom and satisfaction this provided, instead finding emptiness in Expensive Jeans, Perfect Renovations, Santa Shaped Chocolates and the chains of High Interest Plastic Card Dept. Faceless Corporation on the other hand grew as fat as his red suited friend, and everyone else consumed happily ever after.

The End

Rest

Rattled

Sometimes I get rattled, and everything starts to break and scatter. Questions, doubts and accusations swarm. Is the Bible trustworthy? How do I know what I know? Am I who God wants me to be or a disobedient disappointment? Where is God’s kingdom and Christ’s victory in this world of suffering? I am eaten away from the inside, I feel I have no trust, yet in my confusion I don’t feel far from God, but rather am clinging desperately to him octopus style like a frightened child.

Is this or is this not a picture of trust?

I am reminded of playing in the Queensland surf with my niece and nephew. My niece (a wide smiled five year old with the heart of strawberry cream and the cunning of a crocodile) holds tight my hand and squeals each time a wave crashes. My nephew (a cheeky grinned three year old torpedo) only braves the waves because he can’t bear remain just a spectator to his sister’s joy. He sits high on my hip, arms clasped around my neck strangulation style, eyes screwed closed as every wave hits although it barely splashes his toes.

I wonder, who here trusts me more? My niece can face the surf with the knowledge I am there to whisk her sky high if any wave should surg bigger than expected, but she has little fear to begin with. My nephew fears to even look at the wave yet chooses me hold him high above them, but if he really trusted me to keep him safe would he have to hold me so tightly?

What is a picture of trust?

Can a healthy dose of un-trust actually be good for trust?

Hmm..

Broken and Blessed?

Reading through Luke at the moment I’ve been struck how the people who respond most appropriately to Jesus are those whose lives are the most obviously broken, while those who reject Jesus are often the ones who appear to have it ‘all together’.

A ‘dirty’ leper cries “make me clean” and finds healing while the ‘clean’ synagogue crowd try and throw Jesus off a cliff. Some desperate friends do whatever it takes to get their paralysed friend to Jesus and he walks away forgiven, but the self-righteous religious leaders call Jesus a blasphemer. A hated tax collector leaves everything to follow Jesus and celebrates him in a joyful banquet yet the self-righteous religious leaders begin to plan Jesus’ demise. A shamed women anoints Jesus feet with perfume and tears and he honors her, while none of the respectable crowd even think to offer Jesus water to wash his own feet.

Are we the broken, sick, desperate and shamed crowd, or those who think they have it all together? Jesus knows that only hearts that see the depth of their sin can understand the depths of his forgiveness, only hands that know they are empty will reach forward for his grace, only bodies that know they are diseased will seek him out for healing, and only souls that know they are lost can be found.

We desire so much to have it ‘all together’, but it seems that to some extent our brokenness is a gift that draws as near to God, and ensures we do not miss out on his blessings.

Fragile

Abelard & Heloise

Peter Abelard was born in France 1079. A renown scholar he became a theologian, not because of any faith, but because he found it a good theatre to display his love and skill in argument. He established a school overlooking Notre-Dame, and thousands of students would flock to hear his teaching. It was here that he met the young, beautiful and highly educated Heloise, falling deeply in lust he conspired to become her private tutor and began an infamous and ill-fated affair.

The affair crashed spectacularly when it was discovered by Heloise’s guardian uncle, and Heloise found herself to be pregnant. Abelard ‘graciously’ offered to marry the girl, but secretly, so as not to damage his prosects in the church. Heloise announced that she’s prefer the freedom of being Abelard’s whore than the chains of wedlock, so Abelard bundled her off as discreetly as possible to a convert. Heloise’s uncle found his revenge in organising his goons to have Abelard castrated.

Nursing wounds that went deeper than the flesh, Abelard himself retreated into monastic life, eventually finding himself abbot of Montagne Sainte-Geneviéve, and Heloise prioress of Argenteuil. Yet spiritually their journeys are quite different. If one is to take at face value the words and tone of the letters they exchange during this time Abelard is truly humbled by his experience and comes to a true faith, yet Heloise undertakes her vows in dedication to Abelard, desiring continually his love, lamenting his sufferings and willing to sacrifice herself in convent life only because it is his bidding.

Abelard writes in response to one of her letters:

“He brought you not with his wealth, but with himself. He brought and redeemed you with his own blood. See what right he has over you, and know how precious you are. This is the price which the Apostle has in mind when he considers how little he is worth for whom the price was paid, and what return he should make for such a gift: “God forbid that I should boast of anything but the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world!” You are greater than heaven, greater than the world, for the creator of the world himself became the price for you. What has he seen in you, I ask you, when he lacks nothing, to make him seek even the agonies of a fearful and inglorious death in order to purchase you? What, I repeat, does he seek in you except yourself? He is the true friend who desires yourself and nothing that is yours, the true friend who said when he was about to die for you: ‘There is no greater love than this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends.’

It was he who truly loved you, not I. My love, which brought us both to sin, should be called lust, not love. I took my fill of my wretched pleasures in you, and this was the sum total of my love. You say I suffered for you, and perhaps that is true, but it was really through you, and even this, unwillingly; not for love but under compulsion, and to bring you not salvation but sorrow. But he suffered for your salvation, on your behalf of his own free will, and by his suffering he cures all sickness and removes all suffering. To him, I beseech you, not to me, should be directed all your devotion, all your compassion, all your remorse.”

I love this passage, and I hope that they are the words of a man truly repentant, not just a renowned wordsmith and dialectic at his best.

Portrait of a Pineapple Juice Popper