...a word from Kathy

Welcome to the week of Christmas!  We have choices to make in the next few days.  What dishes to prepare, what to wear, who to visit, what time will we gather, did we buy the right gifts, do we have enough gifts for everyone?  We have choices galore.  Many of us are afforded choices we hardly notice. The Christmas story is about choice also.  Joseph and Mary made a choice to believe.  The shepherds made a choice too, " Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened. " Luke 2:15  It strikes me this year that this God who sent his son to earth as a baby invented choice. He chose to create.  He chose to love.  He chose an unexpected arrival into our world.  He chose to leave the perfect heavenly realm and come into our difficult world.  He chose to walk among us, to know our aches and pains. And he chose to offer us the choice to follow him.  Choice in essence is unconditional love.  It's a story of:  I love...

Photo: S. Keating A s the Day draws near, the hustle and bustle becomes more of a hustle for many of us.  Schedules are  being coordinated, visits being planned, Christmas lists have grown longer, the gifting seems endless, and moms are receiving, "Mom, can you cook this for Christmas" requests.  Oh, the joy of being amid such excitement and anticipation.  But the hustle and bustle elves bumping me around, have me longing for a quiet night. It's as though the noise has become too loud for me to hear.  Or could it be that I'm not tuned correctly to hear, really hear. Thankfully, I found myself in a quiet place this week, joining several hundred people at a Symphony Christmas concert.  We arrived and were seated high above the music-makers.  Our view was soaring above the instruments, and the voices.  Yes, it was crowded but in the most lovely way.  The musicians began to tune, the concertmaster appeared, and was greeted with applause.  Th...

'T is the season to be expectant.  Children are expectant and anxious.  Parents are expecting long gift lists and limited funds.  Grandparents are expecting small pleasures of seeing smiles and giggles.  A few among us are literally expecting babies.  I have a sweet friend expecting a spring baby after the hardship of waiting.  This couple is filled with joy, expectant of the gift they will soon receive.   Truly Christmas is the celebration of waiting in expectation, the expectation of a Savior.  We celebrate a Savior entering this world.  He was expected for generations, he was expected as a warrior, as a conqueror, as one ready to do battle and defeat the opposition.  Yet he came most unexpectedly.  He came as a most vulnerable baby.  How could anyone understand or accept this?  How can we? We seem to still be looking for a conqueror of all that is wrong in our world.  Someone who can give us love, and leadership, a...

H ere we are again awaiting Christmas Day, a celebration of the birth of the Savior.  As I think back in time, way back in time, to the BC era, I wonder how people waited and what they anticipated as they looked for a Savior. Was the expectation so beyond their imaginations that at times they felt the prophecy was only a myth?  As their fathers and grandmothers taught the stories of the expected Messiah, did the words at times fall flat?  In everyday living, holding on to the expectation and the hope of being saved amidst significant persecution, had to be extremely difficult.  It's hard to wait and believe.  It's really difficult to rest in a waiting period without becoming tired, feeling foolish and perhaps turning cynical.  Who can truly save us, they may have pondered?  How can this mess of my life be 'righted' and made whole?  Many life experiences–famine, war, persecution–perhaps led them to feel the foolishness of belief in an unseen savio...