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We really liked this blog we’re sharing with you today and its story of the REAL Saint Valentine. Valentine was imprisoned, and subsequently martyred, in the third century. His crime? Performing illegal marriages! It seems that under the laws of the Roman Empire, Christians were deemed unworthy of the rights and privileges of legal wedlock because of their immoral lifestyle. Well, I’m one Christian who was very happy to be able to legally marry my Valentine, of thirty-three years, in 2011—in a marriage ceremony that was illegal in my home state just a few months before (and still illegal in all but seven states, and still unrecognized by the Federal government). So here’s to Saint Valentine, and here’s to making marriage the legal right of all Americans!


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My own understanding is more along the lines of this bumper sticker.



I was raised by two parents trained in the hard sciences: my father was a research chemist who helped develop Heparin for widespread medical use, among other worthwhile endeavors. I grew up surrounded by practicing researchers, and that instilled some lifelong beliefs in me. First, I saw that most people in this field are exacting: they have a “no bull” pragmatic approach to life—if the facts don’t fit a pet theory, they kill it and find something else that corresponds better with reality. Second, I realized that many scientists work relentlessly in the service of humankind. Yes, there are those who build better bombs, but my father was not one of those, and neither were his co-workers. They labored throughout my growing-up years slowly, carefully, and in hope, whittling down the number of killer diseases and finding more ways to heal the body. Additionally, I developed a sense of the elegance and awe of the physical universe (this was long before I had any real spiritual beliefs). The woods, the ocean, the amazing profusion of plant and animal life—it was all splendid and amazing. Likewise, Paleontology fascinated me. My father repeatedly took me to the Chicago Field Museum where I stood gape-jawed looking at enormous fossil skeletons and at the Charles Knight murals that brought those skeletons to vivid life. He also took me to quarries where we rented hard hats, brought our picks, and chipped away at rock strata until it yielded trilobites and brachiopods. Forty years later, I still have my prize fossil finds displayed on my office shelf.

At the age of 18 I experienced a life-changing encounter with Christ. At a Young Life Camp, I said a sinner’s prayer, to wit: “Jesus, if you are who they say you are, then you can do a better job guiding my life than I have done. Come into my heart and lead me. I give my life to you.”

He did. I changed. Life has never been the same since, and I have never really looked back or doubted the reality of that encounter. Thirty-four years later, I still ask Christ to guide my life each day. I also read Scripture each morning, believing that God speaks to me through its pages. And I pray—sometimes with laughter, sometimes with tears—sharing with God all the events of my journey.

To put all this briefly: I am a child of science and a child of God. I owe my personality, perceptions, and whatever success I’ve seen to both the spiritual and scientific realms.

So it was disheartening—awful, really—when as a new Christian I heard fellow believers disparaging science. I quickly learned that fellow Evangelicals in the “Young Earth Creationist” camp were dead certain that the entirety of evolutionary biology (and evolution is so enmeshed that I may as well say “all of natural science”) is either (1) a colossal mistake, because scientists are too stupid to understand what they’ve spent centuries confirming, or (2) an immense conspiracy theory—the biggest hoax perpetrated to date on humanity.

Discovering that many of my new brethren so vilified science was like being adopted into a lovely new family, only to discover that I had joined Montagues to be recruited in their blood feud against the Capulets. I knew with certainty the people who reared me were neither deluded nor deceivers: yet I was rapidly falling in love with the adopting family of faith. What could I do in the midst of such a distressing quarrel between two sets of cherished relations?

Fortunately, I was soon exposed to a number of thoughtful and well-educated believers—including practicing scientists and professors of science—who assured me that I didn’t have to choose between my sets of kin. I became familiar with the “Day=Age” theory of Genesis days, and the fact that Genesis One—viewed from an earth-centric POV—was surprisingly like the scientific story of life on earth, if viewed in tiny snapshots (each “shot” comprising billions of years). I learned that Saint Augustine, perhaps history’s most influential theologian, felt that the “days” of creation were not literally 24 hours. I also saw that much of what the Bible says about cosmology is expressed more poetically than literally (see for example Psalm 19:5, 1 Samuel 2:8B). I came to believe that God’s delight in nature leads God to wax poetically, just as Robert Burns’ love for a young woman led him to declare “My love is a red, red rose.” None of us are foolish enough to think that Burns’ mistress biologically morphed into a form of plant life; yet some Bible scholars refuse to acknowledge poetic metaphors in Biblical creation accounts.

Sadly, three decades after my conversion, I continue to see war waged between those who see the Bible disproving science and—understandable reaction—hard atheists who counter-attack blow-for-blow and disparage faith, claiming to stand on the bulwark of science. Yet there are others who encourage me. Francis Collins, former director of the Human Genome Project, is both an Evangelical and a leading geneticist. His book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief is a clearly written apology for Christ and for the genetic proofs of evolution.



Collins also brings scientists and theologians together for irenic dialogue at his internet forum: http://biologos.org.

Thirty-three years after my conversion, I become more convinced with each passing year that science and faith are two windows viewing the same reality from differing perspectives. I become more deeply a child of science and a child of God. Science continues to slowly yet surely deepen my understanding of the universe and enable me to do valuable things (now I can manage this blog via my tablet and my smart phone). At the same time, I find deeper meaning and deeper joy with each successive season by believing in God whom Scottish preacher George MacDonald so aptly described: “The God who is ever uttering himself in the changeful profusions of nature; who takes millions of years to form a soul that shall understand him and be blessed.”]]> 788 Peter Enns' book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament. It is deep and thorough: not the kind of book one can skim through and give a review, so I’m not going to venture an appraisal of the book until I finish it (and that might be a while). But I want to reflect briefly on a quote that jumped out at me. Enns Says: I have found again and again that listening to how the Bible itself behaves and suspending preconceived notions (as much as that is possible) about how we think the Bible ought to behave is refreshing, creative, exciting, and spiritually rewarding.

I’ve pored over the Bible in various translations for more than three decades now, and I find those words to be truer with each new reading. What are some of the “preconceived notions” that tame and limit our appreciation of the Bible?

-It must be “God’s little instruction book.” In many cases, it does give instruction (IE proverbs) yet just as often it’s narrative, or history, or poetry. Sometimes my insistence on “instruction” has sucked the life out of a lovely metaphor—something that goes beyond propositional truths.

-It must fit my doctrinal scheme (whatever scheme that may be—Calvinist, Arminian, Pentecostal, Non-Pentecostal…you name it). I once heard Professor Miraslov Volf explaining the relation of Scripture and theology: he said that any system of theology was like a suitcase—and the Scriptures are like too many clothes for a trip: no matter how you try and stuff the clothes into the case, some will pop out of the sides. The Scriptures are just too much to “box” into our theological compartments.

-It must fit with our contemporary understanding of science, history, morality, etc. This gets to Professor Enns’ point; the Bible came embedded in specific human contexts: it is the Word incarnate in a place and time and people, just as Jesus was the Word en-fleshed in a specific person, time and place. We do texts injustice when we insist that they cohere with our present way of thinking. And isn’t it hubris to think that God must give preference to our tiny moment in time and space, more than the ancient world God chose to utter his words in?

People understandably dislike being stereotyped. To say “You must be (insert adjective) because you are (insert race, age, gender, profession, etc)” is demeaning. And the Scriptures are alive as any being…that’s the supernatural quality of the Biblical text. As Luther put it, "The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me." No wonder it resists our attempts to define it narrowly.

How do you see yourself (or others) limiting the Bibles’ texts? Have there been times in your reading when the Bible “jumped out” of its box and surprised you?]]> 787

Please allow me to begin with a disclaimer and then a testimony (though church services and commercial events usually reverse that order).

The disclaimer is that I’m not a real fan of personality-type inventories. I’ve done the “four temperaments” (which go back to the Greek physician-philosopher Hippocrates) and the Meyers-Brigg personality types (much more complex, and based on Jungian principles). They’re interesting, but my assessment is that such devices are merely ways to squeeze infinitely complex human souls into a limited set of boxes—not very helpful for me. And I realize, as I write this, that my blog readers may have the same response to the Enneagram in its various formats.

Having done the disclaimer, now I proceed to the testimony. I recently spent three days in silent retreat at a monastery. As I arrived at my quarters for the retreat, I noticed a small shelf of Christian self-help books. There were several titles on the Enneagram. I decided to browse the introduction to one of the books for just a few minutes and….got hooked. I spent the next three days reading, praying, and going back over my journals from the past four years. The results were powerful. Three weeks later, I am still daily thinking about and applying what I learned from that time. For me, the Enneagram is a significant tool for understanding myself (and hence understanding what God will do with me). Whereas the other personality type tools focus on external behavior, the Enneagram relies on inner motivation and perception. This requires more self-examination and I find it more yielding of results.



I know some of you are long familiar with this tool, as it has been around for decades. But for those unfamiliar, the word Enneagram comes from the 9-pointed star design set in a circle (pentagram, hexagram, and etc. are related shapes). The earliest exploration of this design and its application to souls was begun by a Christian desert monk in the fourth century and then it was developed further by Sufi mystics and finally refined (and, frankly, marketed) by both psychologists and Jesuits in the late 20th century.



The Enneagram philosophy posits nine basic “types” of people (whether these are formed by God or nature or nurture is an open question). Each “type” corresponds to a numbered point of the 9-pointed star.



Under stress or—the opposite—under ideal circumstances, each personality type will shift to another point on the Enneagram. So, for example, a type 7 Epicure under normal circumstances becomes a type 1 Perfectionist when stressed and a type 5 Scholar in ideal circumstances. The changing types are connected by the internal lines of the diagrammed star.

The label given each type changes according to whose book you are reading. Originally, the 9 points of the Enneagram were associated with nine sinful dispositions (abbreviated, at later date, to the 7 deadly sins). Since that sounds negative, more modern lists use morally neutral psychological terms. For example, I’m a type 7 “glutton” (original designation) also known as an “epicure” (Palmer) or “enthusiast” (most recent Riso designation). “Enthusiast” obviously sounds more positive than “glutton” but in effect they do mean the same thing. I’m an experience addict.

The first step in using this ancient tool is to survey the types and determine which point of the Enneagram best represents you. There are a number of on-line tools for this, and a thorough selection of inventories and etc. can be found here at the Enneagram institute. Or, the vintage approach to this (which I still prefer) is to take a long day and read descriptions of the types, do some introspection, and decide which shoe fits best? To that end, I offer brief introduction to three major books on the Enneagram, below.



Understanding the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso is a good introduction to the topic. Riso’s writing is clear and straightforward, and the book is well illustrated and organized. For a sense of what the types are, why they matter, and which you might be, this is a good starting place. The book also includes an inventory of questions to help you determine your type (similar to one offered by the Enneagram institute, above, in which Riso is a partner).



The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert is just what it claims to be—a spiritual and theological perspective on the Enneagram, incorporating historical and Scriptural Christian insights to the tool. I like everything Father Rohr writes, so I was predisposed to like this one. As a follower of Jesus, I appreciate the deepening insights this book offers (and such theological application is indeed missing in the other two titles I’m reviewing here). The authors are a bit more penetrating at points than the other books—they assume the reader desires to know herself and serve God at all costs, so there’s little time spent in flattering the reader—a contrast to the “pop psychology” approach dominant in self help books of the past several decades. This book is definitely worth reading if you are a Christ follower, and it would be most helpful if read alongside one of the other books.



The Enneagram: Understanding Yourself and the Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer is the thickest and deepest of these three books. Palmer writes primarily as a therapist but also draws in mythic and counter-cultural references. Her book might be a bit much for an introduction (that’s why I recommend starting with either an online survey or Riso’s book) but the sections on each type are wonderfully in-depth and rewarding. I’d say that 80% of the Enneagram life application principles that I’m actually using were gleaned from Palmer’s book. Where Riso’s book is simplified for accessibility, and Rohr’s book is steeped in Christian tradition, Palmer writes for psychologically astute and introspectively rigorous readers. If you want to really go down the rabbit hole, this is the book to take you there.

Knowledge is worthless unless applied, and the real work of the Enneagram is your introspection. Each book suggests ways to make best use of your personality and also stress reactions to watch out for. Theologically, Rohr tells us that our personality will dictate our sins and also our gifts (and vice versa); whether a behavior pattern is sin or gift depends on how we use it. I found it beneficial to immerse my study of the Enneagram with prayer and also with re-reading of my diaries, asking God to illumine truths about my behavior, my inner being, and my relationships with God and others.

After three days with these materials, I concluded that the Enneagram reveals the shape of my individual soul. The insights I gained are not all affirming: in fact I would characterize most of them as humbling. But if I want to be a Christ follower, humility is a good thing—very good, in fact.



I’d love to know if my readers have experience with the Enneagram. Has it been a useful tool for understanding the shape of your soul? Which books or materials have been most helpful for you?]]> 786
Today is the eleventh day of the traditional twelve days of Christmas, which ends with the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. For Christians, these twelve days are supposed to be the heart of the holiday season—but those of us who try to keep Christmas going into early January are really at odds with the 21st century. I happen to be one of those people. And I’m still thinking about Santa Claus on this cold January morning!

This cultural conflict between the “secular” and the “religious” celebration of Christmas is a very old one. The Church has been railing against the materialism of the holiday for over a thousand years. I am absolutely convinced that it’s time we reclaim Santa Claus as the one figure who can really bridge this gap and help us all—Christians and secularists alike--celebrate a more meaningful and happier December holiday.

More and more people are becoming disillusioned with what I’ll call the consumer-goods Christmas, the Christmas that’s headquartered at the mall. I mean, let’s face it—all those gifts don’t really make us happy and with the economic realities of 21st-century America, we can’t really afford them anyway. And given the way Santa’s image has been used to sell us all this “stuff,” it’s been easy for the world to get a little bit cynical about the jolly old saint. Some religious people, completely forgetting his saintly roots, have gone so far as to portray Santa Claus as the “anti-Baby Jesus.” They see Santa Claus as presiding over a holiday of materialism and greed in direct competition with—in opposition to—the real spirit and meaning of Christmas.

But Santa Claus, like Christmas itself, continues to offer us something that truly transcends our grown-up cynicism and our disillusionment with the world as we have come to know it. To fully embrace Santa Claus is to embrace the magic we knew through him as children. To understand him is to acknowledge his embodiment of the collective hopes and aspirations of generations of our ancestors who created in him a perfect symbol of both Christian virtue—loving generosity toward all—and the old solstice celebration of life and hope in the darkest days of the year.

I think that to live an intentional, spiritual life we sometimes have to choose the myths we believe in. Personally, I choose to believe in Santa Claus. He is wonderful and magical. He is a very special part of my memories of childhood Christmases long ago. And he remains for me a true messenger of the loving God who became Incarnate in a stable at Bethlehem. He lives in my heart, and I hope in yours, too.

As I said at the beginning of my Santa blogs, most of the world has forgotten the deep Christian roots of Santa Claus through his direct “ancestor,” Saint Nicholas. We’ve taken the “Santa” (the Latin word for holy) out of Santa Claus. I’d like to propose this as a slogan right along with “Keep Christ in Christmas”: “Keep the Santa in Santa Claus!”]]> 785 zeitgeist (“the spirit of a culture”) of his time and place. More than 1500 years, and several dozen human generations, separate the Greek-speaking Turkish bishop, Nicholas, and the Santa Claus who helped usher in the New Year in 1900. The original Nicholas would find it hard to recognize his own image—and yet, through all the distortions of the passing centuries, certain aspects of the myth remain faithful and true, still carrying into the world a message of generosity and bounty.

We start with a wonder-working Holy Man, a high-ranking member of the established Church, whose life was held up by that Church as an example of service to Jesus Christ and the Christian community. This was the Nicholas of medieval Europe; a Christian Saint called upon by the faithful for heavenly intercession in time of need and whose very bones were venerated as holy--and miraculous. The Saint Nicholas who survived the Reformation and brought gifts to the children of northern Europe on the eve of his December 6 feast day was still very much understood to be a Christian saint in the old tradition, but had by then taken on many of the attributes of the mysterious winter-time visitors and hearthside spirits of Germanic mythology. Clement Clarke Moore introduced the Sinterklaas of old Dutch New York to the rest of America in a poem that went viral in the first half of the 19th century, and Thomas Nast created an enduring visual image of Santa Claus for an enthusiastic audience. Victorian-era America took to Santa Claus in a big way. He was, it seems, the perfect personification of Christmas in a society that was becoming increasingly secular while at the same time sentimentalizing childhood and “home sweet home.” Santa represented a vision of cozy, middle-class comfort that was becoming accessible to more Americans and was the aspiration of many more, including millions of new immigrants. As they became “real” American families, Santa Claus replaced the traditional Christmas-time gift-givers of the “Old Country” (such as the Italian La Befana and the Slovak Ježiško).

Whether he came down the chimney or through a tenement window, Santa Claus was “visiting” more and more American homes as the 20th century wore on. Except in the most prosperous families, the gifts Santa brought were still the kind of simple things that had always delighted children—an orange in the toe of a stocking, a bag of hard candy, a cloth doll, a story book, a baseball glove. But Santa’s gifts became more elaborate in the economic boom years of the 1920s, as incomes rose and cheaper mass-produced toys became available on the market.

My late father was a life-long fan of Santa Claus. Nearly all our familiar ritual and lore was well-established in his 1920s childhood: the “wish list” letter to Santa, promising good behavior and addressed to the North Pole; the department store visit with the great man himself; the building excitement as his Christmas Eve visit approached; the milk and cookies left out to fortify Santa for his long journey. The only thing missing from my father’s Santa Claus legend was that beloved ninth reindeer, Rudolph. (The story of the red-nosed outcast who saved a foggy Christmas was written by the advertising department of the Montgomery Ward department store and distributed by the millions in a giveaway booklet in the 1930s.)

The Depression and World War II may have pared down the expansion of Santa Claus’s bounty, but the post-war era made up for it. Children of the Baby Boom of the 1950s and ‘60s were brought up with high expectations for Christmas morning. Santa was bringing shiny new bikes, talking dolls, battery-operated robots, and cowboy suits to good boys and girls. I was seven-years old on Christmas Eve 1963, and even in my devoutly Catholic home, it was Santa Claus I went to bed dreaming of, and not the Baby Jesus.

By the second half of the twentieth century, Santa Claus ruled over a Christmas that was bountiful (and materialistic) beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors. His image had been enthusiastically taken up by the advertising industry to sell consumer goods--first children’s toys, but later everything from electronic gadgets to luxury cars. Santa was literally EVERYWHERE in an expanding media culture and his message, loud and clear--first in newspaper and magazine ads and later on radio, on TV, and online—was BUY, BUY, BUY. It was the department store, and later the mall, that was Santa’s headquarters. And that “all about the presents” Santa was becoming THE icon of American consumer culture. This was the image of him that was exported all over the world. In the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, the Coca Cola Company produced dozens of advertisements, illustrated by Haddon Sundblom, that institutionalized the image of the jolly, white-bearded man in a red, fur-trimmed suit that literally billions of earthlings recognize as THE Santa Claus. And in the dozens of brilliant illustrations that Sundblom created, Santa was always drinking that ultimate American consumer beverage—Coke. The 20th century Santa Claus was always trying to sell you something!

But I propose that the spirit of Santa Claus—even in the most crassly commercial exploitation of his image—transcended the incredible excesses of 20th-century materialism. A sizeable segment of the population still knew that Santa Claus didn’t live at the mall, but that his magic was about the simple joys of Christmas morning in your own living room, under your own Christmas tree, with the people you loved best. Children, and the people who love them, have kept the REAL Santa Claus alive. The real Santa is first and always a gift-giver, someone who helps those of us who inhabit this material world, with all its crassness and selfishness, remember the true meaning of Christmas.

As we celebrate the holiday, may each of us make room in our hearts for gifts of all sorts—and may we, like Saint Nick in all his incarnations, never fail to give of ourselves to others, so that the Christ Child, the Divine Gift, will be born anew through us.]]> 784
If I wasn’t in the Christmas mood before my arrival, I got into it quickly. The neighborhoods around the monastery were thoroughly decked out with lights, large figures and blow-up- light-up outdoor dioramas—everything from the Holy Family to Santa Claus on a Harley.

At the monastery itself, Christmas décor was evident both outdoors and in. Outdoors, the lovely life size statue of Nuestra Senora (Guadalupe herself) was festooned with cloth roses and live poinsettias—a festive ribbon of red as bright as the sun rays that accompanied her appearance to Juan Diego.



Adjacent to the Virgin, there was a life- size nativity with realistic mannequins of Mary, Joseph and the Baby surrounded by lit-up animal figures. A wire-frame and LED light donkey mechanically bowed down, over and over again, toward the Holy Child.



Inside the monastery, Christmas was even more in evidence. Lights, throw-rugs, banners and decorations everywhere announced the bright season. In the chapel, the altar was moved to the side in order to make way for a fabulously sculpted set of figures: The Christ Child, Mary, Joseph, an imposing angel and shepherds and wise men, beautifully life-like and surrounded by glowing lights.

In the living room next to the chapel I counted more than three-dozen nativity sets, of every artistic and ethnic variety you can imagine. There were fine Italian porcelain sets, simple clay Native sets, snow globes, silhouettes—made of plastic, tin, clay, ceramic, stone, glass—you name it.
Surrounded by a virtual museum of manger scenes, Sisters Lydia and Linda and a handful of female companions were busier than Santa and his elves cranking out huge stacks of Christmas cookies and Christmas bread. The monastery not only looked like Christmas, it smelled like Christmas too!

Now frankly, I find over-the-top Christmas decoration to be a tad bit off-putting in stores and malls, and sometimes even in public parks. Yet at this monastery there was no hint of artificiality or exploitation: this vast array of seasonal icons was fully matched by the celebrative mood of the faithful. The Sisters and their friends were caught-up in the happiness and compassion of the season. It was all-of-a-piece.

I went home asking myself: why does this monastery—and the mostly Latino parish that they serve—do Christmas on such a grand scale? Is it the church culture, or the ethnic culture or…something deeper? Reflecting on it, I say “yes” to all three.

The Creche (AKA Nativity Scene) is ubiquitous throughout Western Culture, but it had its beginnings in a mediaeval monastic movement. According to Wikipedia, “Saint Francis of Assisi is credited with creating the first nativity scene in 1223 (a "living" one) intending thereby to cultivate the worship of Christ, having been inspired by his recent visit to the Holy Land where he had been shown Jesus' traditional birthplace.” So…it makes sense for a Catholic monastery to celebrate the Nativity Scene in all its variety.

I gained further insight reading Vergilio Elizondo’s book A God of Incredible Surprises. He describes the Pesebre (Nativity Scene) from an immigrant perspective: “It is a clear portrayal of the cruelty of life that is the daily lot of the poor and unwanted: but in their faith in the God of life, they manage to rise above the oppressive forces and both see and celebrate the goodness and beauty of God and all of God’s creation, especially in the birth of a child.” He concludes, “It is this stark realism that the Mexican poor continue to present in their homes and barrios as beautiful and inspiring.” They know that God’s glory continues to appear among the refugees, the immigrants, the poor and neglected of the world.

In contrast, I have had a relatively fortunate life—at least in terms of material goods. Yet small misfortunes intrude into all of our narratives. The day after I returned from my retreat our home furnace quit operating—an event that made me wonder why I left Phoenix with its 60 degree heat for my home city with a temperature of 20 degrees. I called my handyman who said he’d call his furnace man. Then I began my devotions with the Lord’s Prayer but I had to alter and, “And give us this day our daily bread—well, give us this day a working furnace. Please send the repair man quickly. And…affordably. Amen.”

So I stoke the wood stove and wait for the furnace man to come and chase away the specter of coldness. And I keep an eye on the thermostat hoping our lovebird keeps chirping: his survival is the one I’m actually most concerned about, since the bright little avian hails from tropical climes. A strange advent this is…waiting for the furnace repair man.

Waiting in hope. That’s what Israel did for the centuries before Christ’ birth. That’s what Jesus’ followers do today, waiting for Christ’ return in a world plagued by political infighting, poor economy, terrorism and possible ecological catastrophe. We wait in hope…for the heat to be fixed, for poverty and injustice to end, for the God of Hope to come and dwell with us.

And we pray: “Come, Christ Child. Come, Lord Jesus. Maranatha. Amen.”

THANK YOU to all my friends who read A Friend for the Journey blogs. May God Bless You richly at Christmas time and throughout the New Year.]]> 783
This is precisely the message of Christmas: that in reality God is close to you, just where you are. . . . He is there with tender affection. He says: Do not be afraid. Trust to this close presence; it is not emptiness. Cast off, and you will find. Relinquish and you are rich. Because Christ accepted human life, you too can dare to do what he did. . . . For he is both God and human: giver, gift, and reception; call and answer in one. . . . We would experience ourselves differently if God had not been born human. And if we have the courage to understand ourselves in a way which can only be done in grace and faith . . . then we have had the Christmas experience.

Rahner asks us to consider: What does it mean that God was born a human baby? What does it tell us about who we are?

And he concludes that, because of the Incarnation

Eternity is already in the heart of time, life is at the center of death, truth is stronger than lies, love is more powerful than hatred. . . . We are more than we can imagine.

From all of us here at Anamchara Books: may this Christmas season bring you a new awareness of God's presence in your life--and may it fill you with hope and joy and courage for the new year.]]> 782 The Quest for King Arthur by myself and Ellyn Sanna—this time on the symbolism of sharp pointy objects. The Quest for King Arthur is now available from Amazon’s Kindle store (print version coming soon).


This Bronze sword in the Prehistoric and Celtic Museum in Dingle, Ireland, predates the age of Arthur—but it was doubtless a weapon of great value and importance to its Celtic warrior owner.

King Arthur not only has a realm of authority, but he also has an instrument of power by which he exercises that authority—his sword Excalibur. As an archetype, the sword symbolizes the masculine potency we all possess, whether we are male or female: the power to change the world. When Arthur first draws his sword, he takes up his kingship. From then on, he wields Excalibur for good, to bring justice and security to his kingdom.

***

When the boy Arthur pulls the sword from the stone, in the story Disney made famous, he is the unexpected hero so common in fairy tales, the one who appears small and weak and foolish, the one who has always been overlooked. And yet only he is able to draw the sword—and when he does, his power and authority become suddenly obvious for the first time.

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
—Matthew 21:42

***

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world
to confound the wise;
and God has chosen the weak things of the world
to confound the things which are mighty.
—I Corinthians 1:27

***

In some stories, the sword Arthur draws from the stone breaks and must be mended by the mysterious Lady of the Lake, while in other versions of the legend, the Lady of the Lake is the one who gives Excalibur to Arthur. In this version, as in the tale of the sword in the stone, Arthur must be worthy to take the weapon. According to Howard Pyle’s 1903 version of the Arthurian legends, when Arthur reaches out to grasp the sword and its scabbard, “Lo! They were his own.”

Each of us, with this same sense of delighted recognition, pick up our own instruments of power, those things that give us the authority to be our true selves.

***

Defend your mind with the sword of the Divine Spirit,
the Divine Promise.
—Ephesians 6:17

***

But Arthurian legend also tells of another weapon, the Spear of Destiny, which strikes the Fisher King with the Dolorous Stroke, bringing death, destruction, and suffering to all the land. Clearly, our human power for good or ill depends on how we take up our swords. We can bring healing and justice to our personal realms—or we can strike them dead and barren. We can do God’s work in the world—or we can cut off the roots of life and love in the world around us.

The choice is ours.

***

And no matter how good our intentions, swords are not meant to be waved about wildly and indiscriminately. They come with both scabbards and shields for a reason. Excalibur’s sheath possessed healing powers, implying that sometimes restraint can be as powerful as action. Meanwhile the shield symbolizes the power of individual identity; although the outer surface of the shield bears the heraldic symbol that communicates the knight’s name to others, the interior is polished like a mirror that reveals the bearer’s identity to himself. Self-knowledge is vital to the battle of life.

I am secure behind the Divine shield;
Divine humility makes me strong.
—2 Samuel 22:36

***

So it was that King Arthur took great joy in that forest land, for he was without ache or pain of any sort and his heart was very greatly elated with the wonderfulness of the success of that adventure into which he had entered. . . . And, indeed, I know of no greater good that I could wish for you in all of your life than to have you enjoy such happiness as cometh to one when he hath done his best endeavor and hath succeeded with great entirely in his undertaking. For then all the world appears to be filled as with a bright shining light, and the body seemeth to become so elated that the feet are uplifted from heaviness and touch the earth very lightly because of the lightness of the spirit within. Wherefore, it is, that if I could have it in my power to give you the very best that the world hath to give, I would wish that you might win your battle as King Arthur won his battle at that time.
—Howard Pyle (The Story of King Arthur and His Knights)

In your life, what are the “instruments of power, those things that give us the authority to be our true selves”?]]> 781
It’s hard to say exactly where some of Moore’s Saint Nicholas imagery comes from. Scholars of folklore believe that much of it comes directly from the various pre- or non-Christian beings that had long been attached to the Saint Nicholas figures of northern Europe. Moore was, after all, a scholar of ancient languages and lore. The poet’s Saint Nicholas is obviously not a human holy man, but instead resembles a whole tribe of Germanic and Scandinavian trolls and their kin associated with mid-winter festivities, the family hearth, and what we might call “earth magic.” With the poem’s magical flying reindeer (these seem to be completely his own invention) and a laughter-prone little man who comes down the chimney dressed all in fur distributing gifts, Professor Moore of General Theological Seminary had wandered far afield from the traditional images of a Christian Christmas! Despite still calling him a saint, and having transferred Saint Nicholas’s visit from December 5 to Christmas Eve itself (which probably reflects changing customs in Dutch-American homes), Moore, a bishop’s son and prominent Episcopal churchman, makes no reference at all to the birth of Jesus Christ or what is often referred to as the “real” meaning of Christmas. Despite this, Moore’s Saint Nicholas, although much-transformed, was still very much the kindly December gift-giver and friend to children he had been for centuries.

Children’s books, Sunday school publications, newspapers, and magazines spread--and then elaborated on--the legend of the Dutch Sinterklaas (his name now Americanized as Santa Claus) to an enthusiastic American public. Along with the Christmas tree, first introduced to America by German immigrants at about the same time, Santa Claus was quickly becoming an essential part of mid-19th-century Christmas celebrations. Clement Moore’s “right jolly old elf” was most often portrayed in the illustrations of the period—a fat, little gnome-like old man smoking a clay pipe and carrying a bag full of toys. The details of his costume varied considerably according to the imagination of the artist portraying him. Sometimes Santa Claus wore a fur-trimmed cloak with a hood, like many of old Europe’s Saint Nicholas-related figures. He could be dressed in green or brown just as often as he was dressed in red. Sometimes he wore a little fur cap festooned with holly. But Santa was always dressed for cold December weather and he was definitely no longer clad in the vestments of a medieval Catholic bishop.

It was another New Yorker, the German-born illustrator Thomas Nast (1840-1902) who created the image of a Santa Claus that is almost, but not quite, our modern one. Over the years, Nast drew Santa Claus literally hundreds of times—in settings as varied as lonely Civil War military encampments, children’s Christmas parties, and in his ice-bound palace at the North Pole. His illustrations appeared on magazine covers, in newspapers, and in books. Over the decades, Nast’s portrayal of Santa Claus evolved into full human size and his immensely popular illustrations showed Santa climbing around on snow-covered roofs, driving a team of full-sized reindeer through the sky, and using a magic telescope to observe children’s behavior--which he kept track of in a great, big book. Nast was incredibly influential in helping to create the Victorian Santa Claus that Americans came to know and love so well.

By the turn of the twentieth century, Santa Claus was as American as apple pie and a symbol of the middle-class culture to which millions of immigrants aspired. Just about every American child knew then, as they still know, that Santa lives at the North Pole, wears a red, fur-trimmed suit, keeps track of who’s naughty and nice, and flies through the air on a sleigh pulled by reindeer delivering gifts to good boys and girls (who should be fast asleep) on Christmas Eve. The Santa Claus that our great-grandparents knew oversaw an increasingly child-centered and family-oriented Christmas. And the simple gifts he brought—an orange, a candy cane, a doll, a watercolor set—were still small enough to fit into a child’s stocking.

One of the most powerful myths of the modern world was becoming well established. Instead, of seeing this myth as an alternative to the story that took place at Bethlehem, we might think of Santa Claus as a powerful ambassador for that most ancient Christmas message, with a unique ability to carry it beyond the Christian church and into the ordinary world, into places that might not otherwise have welcomed it.]]>