Half your wood and half your hay, by Candlemas Day. Or so that saying goes. This year we, VF&G, aren’t doing well on that score.
It is also the day all holly and boughs are removed from the home. I think I’m done. I really don’t have much left of Christmas decorations up, save for the things I purpose to leave until Valentine’s Day, red things and snowy things, snowmen. That includes my winter village.
The creche isn’t to be put away until Candlemas but on that I jumped the gun, I packed away most of Christmas on the last day of January. well at least I gathered things off the shelves and put them on the living room work table, or the dining room table or my bed. From there I packed things in their appropriate boxes. Most of which found its home in the attic yesterday before dinner, save for two boxes worth that greeted me this morning from the living room work table.
I’m glad my salvation nor my daily relationship with Christ depends on the days I do things or the food I eat on which plate. I would be in miserable shape. I do love tradition and special days, but sometimes I just can’t live up to the day at hand, I’m glad my Lord sees all days the same. I’m also glad that as far as I can tell he isn’t upset with the joy frivolous day counting brings as long as we keep it into perspective and never make the day more than Him.
It is easy I think for us to do that. Christmas is the big one. We can get wound up tighter than a clock focused on the Day instead of the King. Being rude because someone unknowingly says, “happy holidays” instead of merry Christmas”. Fretting to near despair because the Christmas clothes on the freshly dressed-for-church-children are getting rumpled to death long before you get to the church. The special food to be only eaten on Christmas eve turned out to be a flop or not available in the store, or, or, or. The list is endless, and one by one they chip away at the true joy of the season we are closing the final door on today, Feb. 2nd. And we vow to never let it again, only to more or less go there in a couple weeks when our honey bring flowers instead of chocolate, chocolate instead of earrings, earrings instead of you name it. Then there is the panic over Easter, clothes and messy children again, and getting the proper things into the dinner and baskets.
We are humans, we can, and usually do, get things way outta whack. Hopefully God’s mercy and His words bring us back as we teeter on the edge not falling off the precipice. I think it is easy to apply this to today’s mayhem over politics. There are a lot of folks on both sides hanging on the precipice, some are aware of God’s voice, others are not. At a time such as this it is good to remember, as we are spewing words from God’s book, or at least our rendition, that we remember Him more than our point. We could stand in the town square tossing the hypocrisy ball back and forth until we lose our fingers, the ball is flat, the spectators have gone home, our households and workplace are in shambles. We are human, we will always and forever, until we are in heaven, be hypocrites. The goal is to not be one, an actor playing a part, claiming a part that isn’t us, intentionally.
Its politics, the other guy is always going to be wrong. Until, maybe, he isn’t. But ya gotta keep things in perspective unless you fall off the precipice like those in Berkley the 1st of February, who are burning and tearing their own campus apart. Oh wait, not really theirs, the communities. This has been going on in our beautiful diverse country since late Tuesday night, November 8th. But what the heck, I’m probably not talking to those who are burning things up here am I Dear Reader? It does seem a specialty of our times, to burn down the very thing we claim to protect. In a city near here, this last weekend we have someone carrying on Madona’s lovely theme she gave voice to on the 21st of January. On a bull horn 50 miles away, was some woman yelling into a megaphone that the White House must die. Seriously. The White House isn’t just a suburban house where some powerful rich white guy lives. It is a symbol, one of the many symbols of our freedom. Freedom that I get, hasn’t been enjoyed, let alone even visualized, by every single law abiding person down through the ages of this amazing country. But burning down the House, threatening to burn it, suggesting someone should, weakens the very thing it symbolizes. Not saying we need to remove everyone’s freedom of speech, But we should know ourselves, when to temper it, when to leave hyperbole home in a box. Lest it become the hatred we are saying we are fighting.
