A New Christmas Story - Part 1 - HOPE

As a theology major (I can call myself that right?) I know from an academic stand point the Gospels are not factual accounts of the life of the person we know today as Jesus.

They are narratives of ideals. They were written to inspire people. At the time of the gospels there were massive political upheavals and religion was also taking a beating. Pax Romana, while beneficial in many ways was also very repressive in others. The coming of a Messiah was a long cherished dream to many Jewish people and he couldn’t come too soon. But this isn’t an essay on history- I’ll write some of those in May.

For me the stories the gospels, especially the birth narratives don’t need to be factually true to have deep meaning. The stories carry universal truths that have managed to transcend time and cultural boundaries. If nothing else, they’re good stories.

The birth narratives in Luke and Matthew are contradictory and we in modern days have meshed them together in to one story. In one Jesus is born in a barn, in another at home. We’ve taken the Shepherds from one and the Magi from the others. Neither has Mary riding on a donkey (pretty sure). But I still cry when I watch “Nestor the Long-eared Donkey” on TV.

I remembered in my sleeplessness last night that today marks the start of Advent – the four week countdown to Christmas day. Advent is a time to prepare for Christmas and I don’t mean getting presents and decorating the tree. Though, sure, that’s a part of it. Advent is an opportunity to get ready spiritually for a major life changing event and deepen one’s understanding of what Christmas is really meant to be about.

It doesn’t matter if you believe in the religious nature of Christmas; the themes of Advent are universal: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love. Those aren’t Christian concepts –they’re human concepts.

In Christian belief, during the month preceding Christmas we light a candle each week to honour those ideas. We think about what they mean and how we can bring forth more of these ideals into our lives and the world. For me this is an important part of the Christmas season. We have an advent wreath at home, this year we have one that mt son made with his grandfather. It’s very beautiful.

Also during my sleeplessness I started thinking about how I would explain this to to my son and I realized that for me the birth stories from the gospels contain these concepts and that there is much that can be learned from the story of Jesus’ birth.

But, knowing what I know about the Gospels made me realize that as they are they just don’t work for me. They would create a lot of theological questions that would take away from what I want them to show my son.

So I re-wrote them, at 5am this morning. I divided up the story in to four parts, one for each theme in advent. I kept the parts that are important and told the rest the way I want my son to hear them. When we light our first candle tonight I will read him the first part.


Hope

Once upon a time there was a young woman who was like every other young woman. She had many hopes and dreams. She was going to be married to a good man and that she hoped that she would be very happy with him.

One night before she was married she had a strange dream. She dreamt of an Angel from God who told her that she would have a baby and that this baby would be very special. At that time the people hoped for a person to come forward to help lead them. They hoped for greater understanding in God and believed that a person called the Messiah would answer that hope.

When she woke she became worried because she was not yet married, and this made some people upset. She went to the see the man she was going to marry to tell him what she had dreamed.

He too had had a dream. An Angel had come to him in a dream as well and had also told him that the woman he was to marry would have a very special baby. The angel told him that the baby could be the hoped for person.

This made him very happy and they were married. His name was Joseph and her name was Mary. Both of them hoped that their baby would be healthy and strong. They went forward in life full of hope for the things to come.






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One Day on Earth

On 10/10/10 millions around the globe participated in a "Global Work Party" to show the world that there are solutions to climate change. We had an event organized by my Son, Owen, to clean up garbage around our neighbourhood. We invited others to join us, and plenty of them did. Below is a slide show of our event:


Find more photos like this on One Day On Earth

More pictures from this Global Event can be seen at onedayonearth.org and 350.org.

Thank you,
Anne

School's the Word

I'm in School - My last year of University - Bachelors in Divinity - which means I'm reading some amazing textbooks on History, Philosophy and Buddhism - not the 100 list. I'll get back to it eventually, but we're taking a break for a while.

& I'm injured and typing really hurt.

but this picture by Natalie Dee, makes me feel better

http://www.nataliedee.com/

Life is Good Award

The Book Bee - http://thebookbee.blogspot.com/2010/10/life-is-good-award.html
gave me this award last week and I've been so busy and then injuried so I haven't had a chance to post of say thank you.

On a personal note - i've done some serious damage to my neck and shoulders and I've taken some pretty good muscle relaxants so oddball comments, typos are grammar nonsense can all be blamed on them. Thank you.

Rules:
1. Thank and link back to the person that gave this award.
2. Answer the 10 survey questions.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic.
4. Contact the bloggers you've picked to let them know about the award.

Questions:
1. If you blog anonymously are you happy doing it that way; if you are not anonymous do you wish you had started out anonymously so you could be anonymous now?

I'm happy for people to know this is me and my blog.

2. Describe one incident that shows your inner stubborn side:
NO.

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?
Someone who is starting to look older than I feel

4. What is your favorite summer cold drink?
Mojitos.

5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?
Hot bath and a good book.

6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in life? What is it?
Write my own book.

7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching?
Shy and usually ditching.

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment of your life what would you see?
The day my son was born.

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people or events?
I write about books and what I think about them, so a bit of both I guess.

1o. If you had the choice to sit down and read or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?
Read.

The Recipients:
1. The Book Bee - http://thebookbee.blogspot.com/
2. Curled up with a good book and a cup of Tea - http://goodbooksandacupoftea.blogspot.com/

3. A Splash of our Worlds - http://splashofourworlds.blogspot.com/
4. Bookhounds - http://maryinhb.blogspot.com/
5. Ordinary Reader - http://ordinaryreader.blogspot.com/
6. Borough of Books - http://boroughofbooks.blogspot.com/
7. Epic Book Nerd - http://epicbooknerd.blogspot.com/
8. The Friande - http://thefriande.wordpress.com/
9. The Crazy bookworm - http://crazy-bookworm.blogspot.com/
10. RYC's - http://rycjsbookreviews.blogspot.com/
11. The Literary Lioness - http://www.theliterarylioness.com/
13. Displaced English Major - http://allirense.com/blog/?page_id=172
14. One working mom and one stay-at-home mom who love to read - http://bondedbybooks.blogspot.com/

15.100 Books http://onehundredbestnovels.blogspot.com/

Thank you.