Perspectives: Snow

 Some more snow for you.

O Little Town

 

A few weeks ago, probably during Advent, our congregation was singing O Little Town of Bethlehem. I noticed there is a phrase of music in the third line that is lacking some of the harmony that is present in the rest of the song.  As you sing it, you arrive at this section, and there is a musical unity to it that was striking to me. 

This time singing it, though, I looked at the words that we sung at this part of the music (and I've expanded the word phrase a little bit to place it in context:

• the everlasting light
• proclaim the holy birth
• but in this world of sin
• the great glad tidings tell

When you read them in sequence, they are almost a poem.  I don't know why there is this unusal (for the song) piece of unharmonized music (or at least, less harmonized), but I like to think it is because the musician wants us to notice something. 

There is an everlasting light, born to us. We live in a world of sin, but we have great glad tidings to tell - to proclaim the holy birth. 

Have you Heard the Good News?

 

Inspired by Zephaniah 3:14-20

Why do you lower your head in the shame of your sin? 

Why do you hide? 

Have you heard the good news?

Shout to the heavens; 

Share the joy! 

God has taken away the judgements against you, 

God has turned away your enemies, 

God is here.

Why are you afraid? 

Why do you feel weak in your sin? 

Have you heard the good news?

God is here, and God brings you victory. 

God will rejoice over you with gladness; 

God will make you new in love!

God is singing over you!

Why do you worry about the disaster of your sin? 

Why do you suffer about what others will say about you? 

Have you heard the good news?

God is here. 

God is stronger than what presses you down. 

God is turning your shame into praise.

God will bring you home. 

God will gather you, 

God will restore you. 

God will forgive your sin, 

God loved you yesterday, today, 

And God will love you forever.

Perspectives: Bird at Zoo

 

Book Review: All the Good

Information about the book

All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas by Laceye Warner, Amy Valdez Barker, Jung Choir, and Sangwoo Kim.  Abingdon Press. Nashville. 2021. (Amazon)

Summary

From Amazon:  "In All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas, a group of diverse Wesleyan scholars will take you on an Advent journey guided by the practices in John Wesley’s means of grace. John Wesley’s emphasis upon practices of piety and mercy―or good works―drew from the larger Christian tradition. Such practices are often referred to as means of grace.

Each chapter guides participants through one of the four weeks of Advent by reflecting on biblical passages in light of an aspect of Wesleyan means of grace highlighted by illustrations and stories. Readers will look at preparing the way for God, the impact and significance of prayer, the substance of good works and caring for others, and sharing God’s mission to the world."

Impressions

This book works well as an Advent study. It is written well, and I imagine (although I have not seen them) that the accompanying leader guide and DVD would be helpful in planning a group study. Our church used this book this year as an Advent book resource, although I was not able to attend (the sessions were held while I was at work). I decided to pick up and book and read it on my own as the group at church was reading it.

Each chapter highlights an aspect of faith with a Wesleyan emphasis. These include preparing the way, prayer, acts of mercy, and outreach to the world. Each chapter is written by a different author and thus has a different style and "feel." I especially found the chapter on prayer to be not only well written but also illuminating.  There were lots of "ah ha" moments for me in the prayer chapter.  I found chapters 3 and 4 to be less engaging, although I did enjoy the personal stories and Wesleyan connections that were presented.

I would recommend the book (although it's not a the top of my Advent recommendations).

Posts about book

Posts I wrote about the book are tagged with Warner Good

Reading Statistics 2024

For the past few years, I have shared my reading stats.  Maybe it makes me a little nerdy - but I'm not.  I'm very nerdy, and I like statistics.  So here we go for 2024. 

I read a total of 67 books in 2024.  This compares to 56 books in 2021, 35 in 2022 and 52 in 2023.  This is higher than any of the previous years that I have tracked.  I'm not sure why. I seemed to have read more at the end of the year:

The graph above is from my Story Graph account - an account I started in 2024 for its statistical tracking.

Here are how the stats worked out:

Question 1: What was the format of the book?  Hard copy? Kindle? Audiobook?  Audiobook is the winner, at 80%.  I read a lot as I drive to work, using audiobooks, so this is not surprising. I started reading from my Kindle more at the end of the year, using a 5% of the book per day goal.  Amazingly enough, when you read a book, you eventually finish it.  :-)

Question 2: Had I read the book before?  Again this year, to make sure I didn't get in a rut of only re-reading books, I set a goal of at least 30% new books. 52% were new books to me.  This is down from last year, but I'm OK with that.

Question 3: What was the genre of the books I read?    The winner this year was romance, at 36%. followed by fantasy at 25%.  Last year's  "winner" was mystery.  Another one of my goals for 2024 was to read at least 4 "spiritual development" books.  I read 6; that category came in at 9% .

Question 4: When were the books published?  39% of the books I read were published between 2020 and 2024; close behind that was 30% of the books from 2010-2019. 

Question 5: I gave each book a star rating of 1-5.  I gave each star rating a definition (which is too much stuff to share in this post) - fiction and non-fiction had different rating definitions.  My average rating was 4.0.  My lowest rating was 1.5, and the highest was 5.  

This is my Goodreads profile if you are interested in seeing what I've read.  This page is my Blog Library.  I list faith books here (or other books I've blogged about) with links to the posts.

Three Wise Women, Part 3

 Part 3 of Three Wise Women

The journey of the three wise men (and Miranda) continued, across deserts and mountains, through forests of giant cedars and beside muddy rivers. They arrived in Jerusalem, and while the three men met with King Herod, Miranda wandered around the palace, hearing whispers and rumors about Herod. When the three men returned to her, all four were in agreement – they were not going to trust this “king.”

Eventually, they followed the star to Bethlehem, and they found who they had been seeking. Early one morning, they found Mary and Joseph in the home of a distant relative of Joseph’s. Mary was holding the newborn Jesus. He was crying; she was distraught, as new mothers so often are. Miranda, not a rookie at being a mother, having seven grandchildren of her own, carefully took the baby from Mary, and held him, swaying in that way mothers have (or learn), until the child stopped crying.

The three men knelt before the parents and the child, presenting their gifts -- gold for a king, frankincense for a priest, and myrrh as oil for burial. Joseph accepted their offerings with a look of disbelief on his face, but Mary quietly watched, and Miranda knew she was learning about her son, the new king, through her husband and his friends. Miranda watched wisdom as it was born on this young woman’s face.

Before Miranda handed the baby back to his mother, she gazed at his face, mesmerized by him. He was just a baby – he looked just like any other baby she had seen, but she knew, deep down, that this child was different. This child would change the world. This child was more than a king. She knew that after seeing this child, face to face, she would never be the same. She was changed.

She left with her husband and his friends. They bypassed Jerusalem on their trip home, going a different way. Balthazar told her, “To go back through Jerusalem would be backtracking,” but she had heard him telling her husband about his dream – a dream warning them to avoid Herod at all costs.

Years later, back in their hometown, she would often remember her journey to follow the star. She had been right; her life had been changed. Her status in the community, the amount of gold in her basement – none of it mattered anymore. Taking care of her neighbors had become a priority. Loving her family and friends and sharing what she had with those in need were the ways in which she honored the king she had met.

She heard rumors of the woman they had met in Russia – Babushka. It seems that she did give in to her longing to find the king, but that she had left too late. The star had set, and when she finally arrived in Bethlehem, the child and his family were gone. Devastated, she returned to her home, but during the cold nights of winter, she would leave gifts for the children in her neighborhood, wanting to share the love and kindness she had intended to shower upon the king.

Three women – Miranda, Babushka and Mary – each in her own way changed forever when they met the king, become three wise women, full of wonder and delight.

When you meet Christ, face to face your life will change.

Inspiration for the idea wording of the last line is from Floyd Taylor's devotion, which you can read here (Validation).

Three Wise Women, Part 2

Part 2 of Three Wise Women

The three wise men had planned everything. They had packed all of the food and equipment they would need. They had brought other men to help on the journey, they had spare camels for when the ones carrying the loads got too tired to continue. They had their star charts and their telescopes. The one thing they had not planned on was clouds.

A storm passed through, obliterating their view of the star. Now what?

They traveled on, hoping they were going in the right direction. The caravan eventually ended up in a small Russian village.

When Melchior told Miranda where they were, she said, “What? A Russian village? What are we doing in a Russian village? We need to turn around! We’re obviously lost.”

“No, dear, we can’t go back. Balthazar never likes to back-track. We’ll keep going.”

As he said this, Miranda saw a woman watching the caravan from the window of her home. “Melchior, at least ask her for directions.”

“Directions?! We don’t need directions.” He laughed, and rode off.

Miranda scoffed. Men. She pulled her camel to the side and walked up to the woman’s home. The woman was very welcoming, asking Miranda to come inside. Miranda was very impressed by her house – it was spotless and neat, with not a speck of dust or crumb in site. The two women went to the back of the house, to the equally spotless kitchen and sat down to talk, in the way that women do.

Eventually, Melchior noticed that Miranda wasn’t with the caravan and went back to find her. The Russian woman’s son opened the door and led him back to the kitchen.

“Melchior! Come and meet Babushka.” Melchior sat at the table with them, and of course, the conversation led back to the star and their journey. Melchior, as always, almost to Miranda’s embarrassment, was just as enthusiastic about their journey as he had been when they started. Amazingly, Babushka was enthralled by Melchior’s words.

“Oh, I would love to meet this king. Even here in my village, we have heard of the Jewish prophecy. How wonderful that you are going to find him!”

“My lady, Babushka, you should come with us! You should meet this king.”

“Come with you? Oh, I can’t come with you. I have too much to do here! I have house work to do, and tomorrow, I have to prepare a community meal. I can’t just leave. I can’t go seek this king!”

As the couple was leaving, to return to the caravan, Babushka told them goodbye, saying, “If I get everything finished, maybe I will follow you, and find the king myself.”

Three Wise Women, Part 1

Throughout this week, I'll be posting a story called Three Wise Women.  Years ago, our church hosted a "Breakfast with the Wise Men" event.  Sometimes I was asked to share a story; this is one of those stories.  Part of it contains the Russian folk tale of Babushka; the rest is from my imagination. 

This is a story about three women who become wise through their experiences – hard-won wisdom. All of us make mistakes in life; it’s the ones who learn and change who are the wisest.

Our story begins in the Far East, in the home of Miranda. For years, Miranda has smiled as her husband, Melchior, has puttered around in their stable with his two friends, Caspar and Balthazar, looking at the stars. Other people were impressed with how serious the three men were in their study of astrology, but Miranda often just shook her head, and thanked her lucky stars that at least the three men weren’t interested in camel racing – expensive, with a serious risk of gambling losses. At least stars didn’t spit and weren’t messy like camels. So, Miranda humored her husband, and went about her business, sure that astrology was a safe hobby that wouldn’t interfere with what was serious in life.

Until the day when Melchior came up to bed after a long evening in the stable with his friends. He woke her up, immediately putting her in a bad mood. “Miranda! We’re done it! We’ve found the star we’ve been looking for!”

“That’s great, Melchior. Tell me about it tomorrow. That star’s not going anywhere.”

“Yes, yes, it is! It’s the one! We leave in a week to follow it to find a newborn king.”

“What? Leave? King? What are you talking about?”

“The King has been born. We’re leaving in a week, Miranda. We’re taking gifts; we’re going to see this king.”

This finally woke Miranda up. Leaving? To follow a star? Was her husband crazy? Had all of that stable dust gone to his head? Where was her wise husband? They argued all night – Miranda talked about his standing in the neighborhood –what would people say when he left to go follow a star? She tried to convince him that the journey would be too expensive, that it would take forever. She used every logical reason she could think of to try to change his mind. Nothing worked.

“OK. Fine,” she said, thinking to try reverse logic, since nothing else had worked. “If you’re going, then I’m going with you.” She was certain this would stop him. No man in his right mind would take his wife across miles of desert to follow a star. Surely this would convince him.

“GREAT!” he said. “You should see this! I never believed you would go, but that’s great. We leave in a week.” And he ran out of the room to begin preparations, leaving his wife sitting on the bed, with her eyes huge, and her mouth hanging open.

The next thing she knew, she was riding a camel in a caravan, following a star.

Circular Experience of Love

 I'm reading the book All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas.  It is written by four authors.  Chapter 2, which I finished today, was about prayer, and was written by Sangwoo Kim.  Dr. Kim is a professor at Duke Divinity School.  I found the following paragraph to be very profound; it presented a concept of prayer I hadn't seen before:

Those who pray are incorporated into Christ, who is in unity with God the Father. We never come to God as an absolute other; instead, we find ourselves in the mysterious work of the Trinity, who is both the speaker and listener of prayer. In our voices, God the Father hears the voice of the interceding Christ.  Our prayer is not our own accomplishment but rather God's gift of grace coming through the Holy Spirit, who frees, enables, and incites us to pray. When we cannot find words for prayer, the Holy Spirit also "intercedes with sighs too deep for Human Language (Romans 8:26). So in our prayer, we not only speak but also almost overhear what the three persons of the Trinity exchange in words and sighs, and we join the circular movement of love that comes from God and returns to God. So, in our prayer, we can find the utmost hope and trust in the triune God.

I don't want to add too much to that paragraph, but want to point out to you the image of "joining the circular movement of love that comes from God and returns to God."  Have you ever experienced something like that? Doesn't it sound - well, I don't really have words for it.

I have experienced more than one time when I don't have words for prayer but have an immense need for it, and I have experienced the Holy Spirit intervening - when our younger son was born and wasn't breathing, and when the pandemic started. I can imagine that as a circular movement of love from and to God now that I read what Dr. Kim wrote.

Merry Christmas!

 I've never posted a video before without embedding it from YouTube; I hope it works.  Either way, I wish you and yours a very blessed Christmas and a Joyous New Year.

Reading Goals for 2025

 Each year I try to set some reading goals. Here are the ones for 2025.

1. Read 50 books.  So far this year (as of December 19), I've read 64 books.  I've already met the 50 book goal, but 64 books seems like an anomaly compared to previous years.  I'm going to keep the number at 50 for 2025.
2. Read 18,000 pages. My average book size this year was 360 pages.  If I read 50 books, that will be 18,000 pages.  Number of pages is a new goal for me.  I'm able to do it because I have created a Story Graph account.  Story Graph will convert audiobooks to number of pages.  
3. Read at least four Spiritual Development books.  This goal helps with my spiritual growth - not a small thing. It also feeds my post-writing for the blog.
4. Read at least 30% new books.  As of today, 53% of the books I have read have been new to me.  I like re-reads, but I don't want to only re-read.  Hence this goal.

This isn't a reading goal, but I also want to revamp how I track my reading in my bullet journal and in my reading journal, so I'm giving that some thought. 

I'm keeping updated accounts in both Good Reads and Story Graph.  So far that hasn't proven to be an issue at all. I like what each one provides even though at first blush it might seem duplicative. 

I love data!

By the way, this is an image from UnSplash of someone else's library. Do you love to look at pictures of wonderful libraries?  I do.

One more "by the way."  I keep a library page for the blog that lists the Spiritual Development books I have read linked to the posts I've written.  I haven't updated it in 2024, but I'll do that late this year or early next year.  It's part of my end-of-year routine.

Perspectives: Trees and Sunset

 

Why Community?

Many years ago, when my boys were still boys, I was speaking to the mother of another one of the youth in our church. I would guess she was part of the church because her son was part of the youth group and that she and her husband attended because a neighbor had invited them. She said to me that she felt closer to God in her backyard, being part of nature, than in worship.

I don't think that is a unique experience - I think many of us have felt the presence of God in God's creation. Let's set aside my opinion that our church's traditional style of worship wasn't her cup of tea, and just think about corporate vs individual means of grace.

Laceye Warner, in the book All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas, writes this:

The vitality of the early Methodist renewal movement depended on small group gatherings.  John consistently urged that authentic spiritual formation could not take place 'without society, without living and conversing with [others].'"

I think this statement makes sense when one considers the emphasis the Wesleys placed on accountability groups. These small group gatherings were the heart of the spiritual growth Wesley envisioned for those who participated in his movement.

What is the benefit of a communal experience of the means of grace (according to me)?

• Wesley would say to encourage nurture and accountability. While we can practice self-discipline, we are prone to self-justification of our actions, aren't we? At least I am. Having others to encourage and provide truth is helpful.
• When we are part of community, we have opportunities for service. We care for each other, and together, we can reach out beyond ourselves. On our own, who do we love? Who do we care for?
• We are more - synergistically - when we are together than when we are alone. The church - our community - is more than the some of the members.
• When we say, "I'll just sit here in my backyard to worship," we selfishly think that God's desire for our worship is only that we are individually edified. What do we bring to worship than can build up others? What do we bring to church that can help others to grow?
• What about when we are grieving, lost, alone, unwell? Community can support us. And when others need help? Sitting in our backyard doesn't help anyone.
• What about stewardship? What about giving of our gifts and talents? Who do we give them to in the backyard?
• In isolation, our experience of God is one-sided, flat - created only from our own perceptions of God. In community, our understanding of God is broadened, strengthened, because other voices and experiences contribute to it.

Please don't misunderstand me. I think times alone, times in nature, are wonderful gifts of grace. I just think they can't be everything and all. We are called to be in community, called to be of service to each other and to those around us. God is surrounding us, entering the spaces between us. We need each other.