I feel sorry for the people who dont feel the way I do today. Its nearly time for me to dash of to the church to prepare final bits and pieces for our christmas eve service. Im still a little shocked that its Christmas Eve tonight, I swear we are still in august! However I am also extremely excited, jubilant, in awe and wonder and filled with the curiousity of a great mystery.
Christmas has always been exciting for me, as a child it was excitement for the presents I was to receive. Now I am excited to see the reactions to the presents that I have carefully thought out for my loved ones. Nothing gives me greater joy than showing love to the important people in my life, and Christmas is one time of year that gives a licence to decadence; and I flaunted it!
Im jubilant because its christmas and this time of year just makes me so incredibly happy. What this holiday means to the faithful is so incredible and important. How anyone could be sad about what this holiday means is baffling to me. Even those who are alone or cannot give their families the gifts they wish to should still find joy in the fact that we celebrate on this day and tomorrow that holy and divine night where Our Lord God sent his son to save us.
The awe and wonder and curiosity this holiday inspires in me is that of what happened on that night so many many years ago, why it happened, how it happened and that it all happened for me a poor, helpless sinner!
Im like a feeling junky at this time of year, I cant get enough of what it makes me feel like. I pray and hope that all may one day share in this plethera of fantastic feelings I am currently feeling, it is all for us after all.
Merry Christmas to all
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
my new favourite word
Hallelujah!
Im pretty much in love with this word at the moment. According to dictionary.com Hallelujah has a couple of meanings however the one which I most associate with it is an exclamation of praise or joy. Now so far as things go in my book, an exclamation of praise is always met with joy; praising and worshipping makes me joyful; not merely happy, but deeply content in my soul, mind and heart.
This word reminds me when I am getting weighed down with the pressures, worries, or sadness in the world, that there is a reason and a purpose for my being here, that I need not fear for my life is being commanded by the best leader of all time. When I am reminded of this it is all I can do but shout Hallelujah.
Christmas is certainly a time to be made aware of the grace and guidance of our God. For fucks sake he sent his only child to live amongst us, teach us, love us, and die as a sacrfice for us all!
Christmas marks the time that we were eternally forgiven and considered worthy. I will be proclaiming Hallelujah always, but especially at this time.
We always seem to get caught up with the other aspects of christmas; the hastles of organising family get togethers (agony), determining the best gift, organising christmas eve rehearsals, decorating the house...however what we should think when complaining about all these labourious tasks, is why we do them. We gather with family to celebrate this joyous time, sing Hallelujah and share love and gifts together. We give gifts to show our love and commemorate this precious time of year, we decorate the house to reflect the joy our hearts should be filled with and we rehearse and perform christmas services and events to share that joy with others.
Atleast, that is the mind frame we should have. And as a brilliant song named "Don't save it all for christmas day" states we really shouldnt only do these things at christmas; "don't save it all for christmas day, find a way, to give a little love everyday". We should every day chose to proclaim Hallelujah, share the love and joy and be content, however Christmas is a time to share this with more people and be ever more proclaiming, loving and joyful. Atleast that is what I will endeavour to accomplish!
Peace
Im pretty much in love with this word at the moment. According to dictionary.com Hallelujah has a couple of meanings however the one which I most associate with it is an exclamation of praise or joy. Now so far as things go in my book, an exclamation of praise is always met with joy; praising and worshipping makes me joyful; not merely happy, but deeply content in my soul, mind and heart.
This word reminds me when I am getting weighed down with the pressures, worries, or sadness in the world, that there is a reason and a purpose for my being here, that I need not fear for my life is being commanded by the best leader of all time. When I am reminded of this it is all I can do but shout Hallelujah.
Christmas is certainly a time to be made aware of the grace and guidance of our God. For fucks sake he sent his only child to live amongst us, teach us, love us, and die as a sacrfice for us all!
Christmas marks the time that we were eternally forgiven and considered worthy. I will be proclaiming Hallelujah always, but especially at this time.
We always seem to get caught up with the other aspects of christmas; the hastles of organising family get togethers (agony), determining the best gift, organising christmas eve rehearsals, decorating the house...however what we should think when complaining about all these labourious tasks, is why we do them. We gather with family to celebrate this joyous time, sing Hallelujah and share love and gifts together. We give gifts to show our love and commemorate this precious time of year, we decorate the house to reflect the joy our hearts should be filled with and we rehearse and perform christmas services and events to share that joy with others.
Atleast, that is the mind frame we should have. And as a brilliant song named "Don't save it all for christmas day" states we really shouldnt only do these things at christmas; "don't save it all for christmas day, find a way, to give a little love everyday". We should every day chose to proclaim Hallelujah, share the love and joy and be content, however Christmas is a time to share this with more people and be ever more proclaiming, loving and joyful. Atleast that is what I will endeavour to accomplish!
Peace
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
finally something to make moby dick worth reading!
So I decided to challenge myself by reading some old classics; I plan on reading The Odyssey, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Les miserables...but I have started with Moby Dick....You want a frustrating, seemingly pointless, politically incorrect, horror...read Moby Dick! At what is likely to be the two month mark I have but 70 pages to go! You cannot believe how glad I am to reach the end of this awful book which preaches the glory of whaling. It is truly grotesque to read about how they used to maim the gentle giants of the ocean for their oil.
However finally today I found some words of wisdom. On page 404 (yes its taken me a whopping two months to get that far!) I discovered this:
"There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed graduations, and at the last one pause;- through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolecence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbour, whence we unmoor no more?"
I really like this; it suggests that through life we go through various stages of faith;
When we were infants we did not believe anything...lets just say we arent capable of such intense thought.
When we were young children we believed whatever we were told without taking any deeper meaning from it. Life was easy then we asked why but didnt really consider the impact.
At adolecence many of us go through the rebelious, questioning stage; nothing is above being considered and rejected. All is doubted. This follows on to a less severe sceptisism but general belief, then a lack of belief followed by healthy wondering and deep consideration of beliefs; why we believe some things and not others.
I truly think that these are stages we go through, and often as is suggested in the book, regress to a previous stage. The events of life no doubt influence our attitudes to belief. When the world is kicking us in the teeth it is easy to be rebelious, disbelieving or sceptical. However when we are on top of the world it is easy to believe freely considering all our reasons for believing.
Just a little food for thought in any case!
However finally today I found some words of wisdom. On page 404 (yes its taken me a whopping two months to get that far!) I discovered this:
"There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed graduations, and at the last one pause;- through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolecence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbour, whence we unmoor no more?"
I really like this; it suggests that through life we go through various stages of faith;
When we were infants we did not believe anything...lets just say we arent capable of such intense thought.
When we were young children we believed whatever we were told without taking any deeper meaning from it. Life was easy then we asked why but didnt really consider the impact.
At adolecence many of us go through the rebelious, questioning stage; nothing is above being considered and rejected. All is doubted. This follows on to a less severe sceptisism but general belief, then a lack of belief followed by healthy wondering and deep consideration of beliefs; why we believe some things and not others.
I truly think that these are stages we go through, and often as is suggested in the book, regress to a previous stage. The events of life no doubt influence our attitudes to belief. When the world is kicking us in the teeth it is easy to be rebelious, disbelieving or sceptical. However when we are on top of the world it is easy to believe freely considering all our reasons for believing.
Just a little food for thought in any case!
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