The White Stocking

"Christmas means giving. The Father gave his Son, and his Son gave his life. Without giving there is no true Christmas, and without sacrifice there is no true worship."

 --Gordon B. Hinckley

The White Stocking

One of my family's most cherished Christmas traditions is the White Stocking. There are six people in my family, but every year we hang seven stockings. Six stockings are embroidered with each family member's name and decorated with the traditional symbols of the modern Christmas culture: Santa, reindeer, elves, and jingle bells all trimmed in red and green. 

But the seventh stocking is not like the others. 

It is plain white with white beading as its only embellishment. There is no name embroidered on the cuff, just some strings of hanging beads that lightly knock against each other when we open and close our front door or someone breezes by the mantel in the hustle and bustle of the season. 

This White Stocking belongs to Jesus. 

Every year on Christmas Eve the six of us gather together to read the Nativity story (Luke 2) and fill Jesus' stocking with gifts we think He would like most. We never put anything tangible in the stocking, just little slips of paper upon which we write specific goals/promises to make the world a better place by aligning our lives and hearts more diligently with His. The gifts are very personal, so we usually don't share them with each other. We fold the little slips up and address them like a gift, making sure to note the year.

We keep these little folded slips of paper in the stocking even after it has been taken down and stored away until the next year. We love to read our gifts from the last year and ponder on how well we gave the gift. We have several years of slips stored in the stocking and it is really interesting to read them year by year.  

Below is the article we read immediately before we filled Jesus' stocking with gifts this year. It was extremely moving. I'm not really a cryer, but I wept three times while I read it aloud to the family. This article will definitely become part of our yearly tradition. It just puts you in the right frame of mind to give gifts to the Savior. Enjoy!

======================================================
Three Levels of Christmas

William B. Smart 

=============================================================

Christmas is a beautiful time of the year. We love the excitement, the giving spirit, the special awareness of and appreciation for family and friends, the feelings of love and brotherhood that bless our gatherings at Christmastime.

In all of the joyousness it is well to reflect that Christmas comes at three levels.

Let’s call the first the Santa Claus level. It’s the level of Christmas trees and holly, of whispered secrets and colorful packages, of candlelight and rich food and warm open houses. It’s carolers in the shopping malls, excited children, and weary but loving parents. It’s a lovely time of special warmth and caring and giving. It’s the level at which we eat too much and spend too much and do too much – and enjoy every minute of it. We love the Santa Claus level of Christmas.

But there’s a higher, more beautiful level. Let’s call it the Silent Night level. It’s the level of all our glorious Christmas carols, of that beloved, familiar story: “Now in those days there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus....” It’s the level of the crowded inn and the silent, holy moment in a dark stable when the Son of Man came to earth. It’s the shepherds on steep, bare hills near Bethlehem, angels with their glad tidings, the new star in the East, wise men traveling far in search of the Holy One. How beautiful and meaningful it is; how infinitely poorer we would be without this sacred second level of Christmas.

The trouble is, these two levels don’t last. They can’t.

Twelve days of Christmas, at the first level, is about all most of us can stand. It’s too intense, too extravagant. The tree dies out and needles fall. The candles burn down. The beautiful wrappings go out with the trash, the carolers are up on the ski slopes, the toys break, and the biggest day in the stores for the entire year is exchange day, December 26th. The feast is over and the dieting begins. But the lonely and the hungry are with us still, perhaps lonelier and hungrier than before.

Lovely and joyous as the first level of Christmas is, there will come day, very soon, when Mother will put away the decorations and vacuum the living room and think, “Thank goodness that is over for another year.”

Even the second level, the level of the Baby Jesus, can’t last. How many times this season can you sing, “Silent Night?” The angels and the star, and the shepherd, even the silent, sacred mystery of the holy night itself, can’t long satisfy humanity’s basic need. The man who keeps Christ in the manger will, in the end, be disappointed and empty.

No, for Christmas to last all year long, for it to grow in beauty and meaning and purpose, for it to have the power to change lives, we must celebrate it at the third level, that of the adult Christ. It is at this level—not as an infant—that our Savior brings his gifts of lasting joy, lasting peace, lasting hope. It was the adult Christ who reached out and touched the untouchable, who loved the unlovable, who so loved us all that even in his agony on the cross, he prayed forgiveness for his enemies. 

 This is Christ, creator of worlds without number, who wept because so many of us lack affection and hate each other – and then who willingly gave his life for all of us, including those for whom he wept. This is the Christ, the adult Christ, who gave us the perfect example, and asked us to follow him.

Accepting that invitation is the way - the only way – that all mankind can celebrate Christmas all year and all life long.

God and the Universe

{Edmond Dantès}: I don't believe in God.

{Priest}: It does not matter. He believes in you.

--The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas 

I have a quote I’d like to share (below). I like almost everything about this quote, but one thing bothers me and I need to address it before I share.

I don’t know what the deal is lately, but I have noticed a new-age fascination with the term “the Universe” when referring to spiritual things. Is it just because people view God as inaccessible to our modern sensibilities? Or is it because “the Universe” can integrate many differing beliefs into one broad term?

Well, whether it’s for accessibility or unification - or even some completely different reason - it bugs me.

I believe in God and I personally believe “the Universe” diminishes him. He created the Universe; He is bigger than the Universe. And I refuse to reduce His infinite value by perpetuating the term “the Universe” in relation to Him and/or His works. Therefore, wherever the Universe is mentioned in the following quote, I have changed the wording back to what it should be: God. I still resent the brackets, but at least now the principle can ring through without all the distracting noise from "the Universe." ;)

“If you say to [God], 'Gimme, gimme, gimme,' then [God] gives you back what you offered out. You get more 'gimme, gimme, gimme.' “Gimme” means you don’t have enough. You have a shortage. [God] just keeps giving you more shortage because of what you’re thinking and saying.

“If, on the other hand, you say to [God] again and again, 'How may I serve? How may I serve? How may I serve?' and you live a life of constancy reflecting that principle, [God] will respond back, 'How may I serve you?'”

--Wayne Dyer

Listen for Christmas

"Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."

--Bobby

(a 7 year old answering the question, 'What is love?')

This quote has been my favorite Christmas quote for many years now. My love for it originated several years ago when our finances were in dire straights. My husband had been unemployed for many months and we were trying to support our family of 6 off of a meager unemployment check. We received food from our church that December so that we could spare $100 to spend on gifts for our 4 children for Christmas. It was very difficult to meet all the expectations of the family traditions we observe (pajamas on Christmas Eve, stockings, gifts, etc.) with $25 per child, but with the help of the dollar store, we pulled something off. It wasn’t much, but it was the best we could do.

I was a basket case all month long as I collected small gifts for them. They had never experienced such a meager Christmas! I was afraid they would feel less loved and cry for the things they wanted but would not be receiving.

But to my great surprise, it was the BEST Christmas we ever had! I will never forget how I reflected on this quote and stopped to listen as my children opened and adored their tiny gifts on Christmas morning. How could I ever have been afraid my children would feel LESS love? The love in the room was so thick, it was almost tangible! It brought tears to my eyes; a fact which was shamelessly recorded for posterity by the video camera on a tripod in the corner. It was the only gift I received that year, but it was by far my most favorite of any I ever received.

Every year since, as soon as the Thanksgiving dishes are done, I start thinking of this beautiful quote and the love I felt in the room on that humble Christmas morning.  

THAT is what Christmas is all about; not the quality or quantity of the gifts given or received. Christmas is a celebration of the Love that was born in a humble stable that blessed and changed the whole world forever after.

Celebrate Christmas by stopping to listen for it in your room this year…

C.S. Lewis Sunday - Count the Cost

"Law, in his terrible, cool voice, said,...'If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead.' Those are hard words to take. Will it really make no difference whether it was women or patriotism, cocaine or art, whiskey or a seat in the Cabinet, money or science? Well, surely no difference that matters. We shall have missed the end for which we are formed and rejected the only thing that satisfies. Does it matter to a man dying in a desert by which choice of route he missed the only well? 

"It is a remarkable fact that on this subject Heaven and Hell speak with one voice. The tempter tells me, 'Take care. Think how much this good resolve, the acceptance of this Grace, is going to cost.' But Our Lord equally tells us to count the cost. Even in human affairs great importance is attached to the agreement of those whose testimony hardly ever agrees. Here, more. Between them it would seem to be pretty clear that paddling [near the shore] is of little consequence. What matters, what Heaven desires and Hell fears, is precisely that further step, out of our depth, out of our own control." 

--C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

My Run-In with the Law...and God

"Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

--Matthew 7:21  

I’ve had a lot of really great experiences in my life, many of which have been spiritual in nature. I don’t think I’ve ever shared one of my more spiritual experiences on this blog yet, but I figure it’s high time. If you don’t appreciate this kind of thing, I give you fair warning: it’s about to get a little spiritual in here. :)

My youngest son is a competitive gymnast and sometimes has meets out of state. One of these meets was in a town about 2 hours from our home. The meet started at 10am, but there was an important hour long warm up beforehand; so we planned to be there at 9am.

We woke up on time, but through a series of unfortunate circumstances, we did not get on the road until 7:45am, which only gave us an hour and 15 minutes to make the 2 hour drive. But I didn’t despair. I was confident I could make up at least a half an hour by speeding a little. By my calculations, we’d only be about 15 minutes late for warm-up; annoying but acceptable. But we could NOT be any later than that!

Well, my calculations didn’t account for weekend traffic. Even though I had my cruise control set 10mph over the speed limit, I was still 30 miles away from our destination at 9:30am when the coach started texting me. Forget the warm-up, we might not even make the 10am start time! And if we weren’t there when the meet started, he wouldn’t be able to compete.

Feeling the pressure from the coach and not wanting the drive to be in vain, I set my cruise control up another 5mph and hoped for the best. Then when I was still about 10-15 miles from our destination at 9:45am, I set the cruise control up to 100mph for good measure.

Well, I’m not accustomed to driving that fast, so after a few miles, I started to feel extremely unsafe (ya think?). So, I did what I usually do when I feel that way: I said a prayer and asked for safety.

No sooner had I thought the request in my head – I don’t even think I finished my request – when an answer came clearly, almost audibly, and in a matter-of-fact tone:

“I can’t keep you safe if you don’t obey the law.”

Then I started rationalizing. But I’m late! The meet starts in 15 minutes and I’m only like 5 miles from my exit! Surely such a short distance at this speed can’t make that much difference. No, I’m fine. I’m fine.

I heard a VERY quiet, “Okay…”

And then I was immediately pulled over. Seriously, from the time I felt unsafe to the time I got pulled over was probably less than 3 minutes. Had I pressed on my break when I heard the I-can’t-keep-you-safe comment, I definitely would have avoided a speeding ticket….5 MILES from my exit at 9:45am. I mean, I could practically SEE the exit!

The police officer was very nice to both my son and I. She said she clocked me at 92 miles an hour in an 80mph zone (I was luckily climbing a hill when she clocked me, or I would have been going much faster…a fact which I obviously didn’t mention). But she only gave me a ticket for 5 miles over ($90). She was also thankfully very fast. She wished my son luck at his meet and we were driving away at 9:50am.

We showed up at the gym – which was thankfully right off the freeway – at 9:55am, and my son was able to hustle through a warm up before the meet started.

It all worked out in the end and I wish I hadn’t had to pay a $90 ticket. But on one level, I’m kind of glad it all happened because it has been a great lesson for me; one that I have often reflected back on in tempting moments. 

The Lesson: If you want blessings, first utilize the first level of protection: 

OBEY THE LAW!

Whether it's the law of the land, or a law of God (commandments, etc.)...the same principle applies.

Related Posts:

C.S. Lewis Sunday: Love is More than Kindness

The Freedom Paradox

Two Glasses of Water

Pleasure vs. Happiness

Happiness and Ice Cream

Got Glue?

This little ceramic plaque fell off my wall one day and was dashed to pieces on my ceramic tile floor. I was upset at first, but now that it's all glued back together I think it means more to me broken than it ever meant to me whole. 

I think the imperfections of the broken plaque add character and dimension and make the message more meaningful. Before it was just a nice reminder that I shouldn't let my imperfections stop me from doing things. But now whenever I look at it I am reminded that while I am broken, imperfect, and inadequate, with God's help I can be useful and valuable still the same--maybe even more so than if I were in perfect condition.

God's Grace is glue and wholeness only comes through Him. In fact, it is the "Him" inside each of us holding us together that qualifies us. If it were possible to be perfect without God, there would be no place for Him in our hearts. Then where would we be? A nice thought without real meaning? Knowledge without wisdom?

In that sense, I'm glad to be broken! It's the cracks and chinks that make people interesting, anyway. They give us dimension and depth as long as we have the Glue. Without the Glue though, we're just a bunch of broken, jumbled, meaningless pieces.

Related  Posts:  
Being Wrong

Beauty and the Beast

More

Sonnet II

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year's bitter loving must remain

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go, -- so with his memory they brim!

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

 I say, "There is no memory of him here!"

And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

--Edna St. Vincent Millay 

Renascence and Other Poems, 1917

  

It’s kind of odd that this is one of my most favorite poems, since I have never experienced such a loss. I mean, I have experienced the deaths of extended family members, but nothing like the next-level kind of loss that is expressed in the poem. I can’t even imagine the depths of the pain of losing someone I’ve actually lived with or formed those inner-circle bonds with; like a best friend, a parent, a spouse, or - Heaven forbid - a child. I have felt an inkling of the bottomless grief second hand through close friends and family who have lost inner-circle loved ones, but that is nowhere near the same as actually experiencing that kind of loss, I’m sure.

I think I just love the poem because it articulates the multifaceted anguish so vividly that I can almost feel it. Not that I want to feel it; I’m just moved that a collection of words can open my heart to emotions deeper than I could fathom before I read them, and give me more compassion toward those who are trying to navigate the perilous depths of sorrow.

It makes me feel more connected to humanity. I feel more connected to God. I feel more replete with love to give to those who ache. Even if I can only faintly grasp the shallows of that pain, I am more willing to wade as deep as I can to mourn with anyone suffers there.

I feel more.

I feel…more.

And that’s why I love this poem.

Do You Believe in Barbers?

"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadow to blind those who don't."

--Blaise Pascal 

A  man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation.

They talked about many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer. 

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist," the Barber replied. "Tell me...if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain! I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things."  

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the  shop. 

Just outside the barbershop, the customer ran into a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. The man looked dirty and unkempt. The customer immediately turned back and entered the barber shop again and said to the barber: 

"You  know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!"

"No!" the  customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty, long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."

 
"Ah, but barbers DO exist! That's just what happens when people do not come to  me."

 
"Exactly!" affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! That's what happens when people do not go to Him and don't look to Him for help. THAT is why there's so much pain and suffering in the  world."

C.S. Lewis Sunday - Loving God: Response or Initiative?

"The world exists not chiefly that we may love God but that God may love us...It is good for us to know love; and best for us to know the love of the best object, God. But to know it as a love in which we were primarily the wooers and God the wooed, in which we sought and He was found, in which His conformity to our needs, not ours to His, came first, would be to know it in a form false to the very nature of things. For we are only creatures: our role must always be that of patient to agent, mirror to light, echo to voice. Our highest activity must be response, not initiative. To experience the love of God in a true, and not illusory form, is therefore to experience it as our surrender to His demand, our conformity to His desire: to experience it in the opposite way is, as it were, a solecism against the grammar of being."

--C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

C.S. Lewis Sunday - Blurred Vision

"When you come to knowing God the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others -- not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.

"You can put this another way by saying that while in other sciences the instruments you use are things external to yourself (things like microscopes and telescopes), the instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man's self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred -- like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope."

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Lunch with God

I think the following is a really cute little story with a nice message. But I am posting it because it made me wonder: If I could have lunch with God, what would be on the menu? Would I even be able to eat? Would we talk? Or would we sit in silent companionship? Have I ever experienced the Divine within a mortal someone? Has anyone experienced it in me? Hmm. Thought provoking questions...and answers.  Enjoy!

Twinkies and Rootbeer

A little boy wanted to meet God. He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with Twinkies and a six-pack of Root Beer and he started his journey. 

When he had gone about three blocks, he met an elderly man. The man was sitting in the park just feeding some pigeons.

  

The boy sat down next to him and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the man looked hungry, so he offered him a Twinkie. 

The man gratefully accepted it and smiled at boy. His smile was so pleasant that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered him a root beer. 

Again, the man smiled at him. The boy was delighted! They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word.

As it grew dark, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave, but before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the man, and gave him a hug. The man gave him his biggest smile ever. 

When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face. She asked him, "What did you do today that made you so happy? 

"He replied, "I had lunch with God." But before his mother could respond, he added, "You know what? God's got the most beautiful smile I've ever seen!" 

Meanwhile, the elderly man, also radiant with joy, returned to his home. His son was stunned by the look of peace on his face and he asked," Dad, what did you do today that made you so happy?"

He replied, "I ate Twinkies in the park with God." However, before his son responded, he added," You know, he's much younger than I expected." 

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. People come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Embrace all equally!

~Author Unknown

"Now" - What Does it Mean?

I saw the following article today and it reminded me of a C.S. Lewis quote. It is a thought-provoking topic, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

Where is Now? The Paradox Of The Present
by ADAM FRANK, July 26, 2011 (NPR.org/blogs, Category: Science and Philosophy)

The night sky is a time machine. Look out and you look back in time. But this "time travel by eyesight" is not just the province of astronomy. It's as close as the machine on which you are reading these words. Your present exists at the mercy of many overlapping pasts. So where, then, is "now"?

As almost everyone knows, when you stare into the depths of space you are also looking back in time. Catch a glimpse of a relatively nearby star and you see it as it existed when, perhaps, Lincoln was president (if it's 150 light-years away). Stars near the edge of our own galaxy are only seen as they appeared when the last ice age was in full bloom (30,000 light-years away). And those giant pinwheel assemblies of stars called galaxies are glimpsed, as they existed millions, hundreds of millions or even billions of years in the past.

We never see the sky as it is, but only as it was.

Stranger still, the sky we see at any moment defines not a single past but multiple overlapping pasts of different depths. The star's image from 100 years ago and the galaxy image from 100 million years ago reach us at the same time. All of those "thens" define the same "now" for us.

The multiple, foliated pasts comprising our present would be weird enough if it was just a matter of astronomy. But the simple truth is that every aspect of our personal "now" is a layered impression of a world already lost to the past.

To understand how this works, consider the simple fact, discussed in last week's post, that all we know about the world comes to us via signals: light waves, sound waves and electrical impulses running along our nerves. These signals move at a finite speed. It always takes some finite amount of time for the signal to travel from the world to your body's sensors (and on to your brain).

A distant galaxy, a distant mountain peak, the not very distant light fixture on the ceiling and even the intimacy of a loved one's face all live in the past. Those overlapping pasts are times that you — in your "now" — are no longer a part of.

Signal travel time constitutes a delay and all those overlapping delays constitute an essential separation. The inner world of your experience is, in a temporal sense, cut off from the outer world you inhabit.

Let's take a few examples. Light travels faster than any other entity in the physical universe, propagating with the tremendous velocity of c = 300,000,000 m/s. From high school physics you know that the time it takes a light signal moving at c to cross some distance D is simply t = D/c.

When you look at the mountain peak 30 kilometers away you see it not as it exists now but as it existed a 1/10,000 of a second ago. The light fixture three meters above your head is seen not as it exists now but as it was a hundred millionth of a second ago. Gazing into your partner's eyes, you see her (or him) not for who they are but for who they were 10-10 of a second in the past. Yes, these numbers are small. Their implication, however, is vast.

We live, each of us, trapped in our own now.

The simple conclusions described above derive, in their way, from relativity theory and they seem to spell the death knell for a philosophical stance called Presentism. According to Presentism only the present moment has ontological validity. In other words: only the present truly exists; only the present is real.

Presentism holds an intuitive sway for many people. It just feels right. For myself, when I try and explore the texture of my own experience, I can't help but feel a sense of the present's dominance. Buddhism, with its emphasis on contemplative introspection, has developed a sophisticated presentist stance concerning the nature of reality. "Anyone who has ever mediated for anytime" the abbot of a Zen monastery once told me "finds that the past and future are illusions."

Yes, but ...

The reality that even light travels at a finite speed forces us to confront the strange fact that, at best, the present exists at the fractured center of many overlapping pasts.

So where, then, are we in time? Where is our "now" and how does it live in the midst of a universe comprised of so many "thens"?

"Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call 'tomorrow' is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call 'today'. All the days are 'Now' for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not 'forsee' you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you're doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way -- because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already 'Now' for Him." 

--C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity