The Bowling Christmas Experiment

Christmas is aimed to be the most benevolently wonderful moment of the year, the point in time where God fully reached out to His creation to bring us into the fold.

I have been a Christian my entire adult life, but have never quite captured this sweet essence of Christmas; rather, I most honestly associate December with obligatory obligations, deadline stress, busy to the point of feeling unhealthy, eating to the point of being unhealthy, and the yoke of how.I’m.supposed.to.feel.

Maggie and I endeavor to develop a simple and pure relationship between our nuclear family, Christmas, and Jesus, the latter being the most difficult portion to include in the experience. It is neither easy nor fully implemented. At a minimum, I hope that our children more naturally associate this month with Jesus than I do.

I am away from home this Christmas (to be immortalized in my soon to be released Country song). The typical challenges of being away are magnified this week. For Maggie and me, this is our most service-oriented Christmas yet:

she where she is, and

I where I am.

I hope that our experiences help us embed the soul of Christmas in our reality.

I hope that my absence from home and my presence here will help deepen my shallow appreciation for this sacramental celebration.

He's earned the right to preach to me.

Sunday morning at a local church, 25% destroyed by the storm, but (seemingly) safe enough to meet in. The pastor, standing next to his backpacking tent, which he's living in because his house was destroyed: One of the most difficult parts of the Christian life is that being a Christian does not prevent life's tragedies. Surely if God loves us, He would not take away what we love, who we love.

He then opened the scriptures to 1 Peter, chapter 1, verses 6-7:

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

His response:   Therefore, as a believer, all trials and tribulations have for us a purpose:

To grow our faith...

To purify our character...

To encourage others with our testimony...

To rest in the knowledge that Jesus is Lord.

Our faith has value, endures through devastation. The pastor encouraged me with his testimony. 

Me and TC

Me and TC took the chopper from Cebu City to Tacloban. It was a bit short of fabulous. The only thing missing were some drug runners shooting handguns from 300 yards away and busting a hole through the window.

It was about an hour in the air, flying over a few islands and open water. On the eastern hillsides, trees were blown over like sticks, all in one direction. On the western slopes of Leyte Island, the trees were standing, with all of the palm branches permanently oriented westward like a compass.