Each morning I play the game Flow Free on my phone. (Actually, I have a few versions of Flow Free on my phone, but that's not very important.) If you don't know, Flow Free is a puzzle game where you fill the board by connecting dots that are the same color. Here's an example of a solved puzzle:
The daily puzzles normally take me a couple minutes to solve. I enjoy the logic of figuring out the solution and the satisfaction of completing a puzzle, but normally I don't think much about it.
Recently Lanie has caught on to me playing this game. I've been doing this for years, since before she was born. But it's new to her. She doesn't look the game as a puzzle. She sees it as a bunch of pretty colors. "Pretties" is how she refers to it. While I normally plow through the handful of new puzzles each day, Lanie likes to stop and admire the finished image. So I've started slowing down just a little bit. The completed puzzles do look like a somewhat odd form of art. Some of them can really be sort of beautiful.
I know that I often tend to rush through things in my life. I've been influenced by American society, which is obsessed with busyness. But slowing down helps me appreciate things more. Slowing down gives me a chance to see things from a different perspective. I wonder how much more often I could see God at work in and around me if only I'd take the time to slow down and look.
Grace and peace,
BMH
December is an incredibly busy month for many of us. Families get together; workplaces hold parties; schools have concerts and other special events. For lots of us, as soon as Christmas celebrations are over, we've moved on to New Year's plans, and for others those celebrations overlap. Christians have a lot to celebrate at Christmas. We remember that the Son of God became human and was born as one of us. He took up all of our weaknesses and lived among us. Christmas shows that God cares about us and is present with us and understands us. But it's difficult to find time to fully reflect on these important theological truths in the midst of all the other (good) things that are going on. It's easy to not think much about Jesus' birth, especially after Christmas Day has come and gone.
So what can we do? We could take more time to discuss and reflect on what Christmas means throughout the month of December. That could work, but I don't want to cut into the Advent season that the church observes before Christmas. It's good for us to remember how God's people waited for the Messiah to be born. It's maybe even better for us to look forward to Christ's return.
The church calendar has some wisdom for us here. Traditionally the church has thought of Christmas as a season rather than a single day. Christmastide is often celebrated for twelve days (yes, there's a reason for the that ridiculous "Twelve Days of Christmas" song), beginning December 25 and ending January 5. I think we as a church need to emphasize the season of Christmas more. Let's think about and preach about Christmas for a couple or even a few weeks, not just one week or just a special midweek Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service. (Maybe it would even be good to have more Christmas services on some of the days between December 26 and January 5, though that's probably not very realistic unless we take drastic steps to cut back on our busyness during that time.) Let's sing Christmas carols for a while after Christmas Day (and maybe not quite so long before then). Let's take time to carefully read and ponder the stories of Jesus' birth in the beginning of Matthew and Luke as well as other Christmas passages found in places such Isaiah 9 and John 1 and Galatians 4 and Hebrews 2. Let's not let our gatherings and celebrations prevent us from appreciating what God has done that made us start gathering and celebrating in the first place.
And while we take time to focus on Christmas, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Certainly Christmas doesn't exist in a vacuum; we can't totally separate it from Good Friday and Easter. But we have time to remember and celebrate those events later in the church year. During Christmastide let's simply reflect on the mystery of the Incarnation, the wonder of God becoming human. Surely there's enough for us to think about there.
Grace and peace,
BMH
Every year around Christmas, the Hofman family plays football. It's been a family tradition for over 40 years, starting when my dad was a little kid and his family gathered with the cousins and grandparents. Now the game is played among with my dad and his siblings and some of my cousins and me (when I'm around for Christmas). Our annual game, the Snow Bowl, does not feature very high quality football. Not very many of us even attended a high school that has a football team. Tackling was banned decades ago. And while we used to have quite a few participants, we've had a lot of 3-on-3 matches lately.
The Snow Bowl might not be much, but I love it. I started playing when I was about seven, a little kid standing on the edges of play, getting tossed one ball a game as a reward for being out there. Then I became a fifteen-year-old role player who could make a couple plays a game as a secondary option. Then, as time continued to work in my favor and I came into height and wingspan that my dad and his brothers couldn't match, I became a major player around the time I entered college. Sliding around on a dusting of snow—or trudging through several inches, depending on the year—is a lot of fun. There's really nothing that compares with the thrill of showing up a family member, even if that also means being shown up stings more, too. Maybe the best part of the Snow Bowl is that it's a change of pace. There's a lot of wonderful sitting around and eating and chatting during the holidays. Sometimes it's nice to catch a few balls and run until you need to catch your breath, too.
Grace and peace,
BMH
