Advent Reflection 2025 December 2

This may seem unChristmaslike for an Advent post, but not really. God interrupts our lives. Some people do go on quests for God, but just as many or more just meet Him unexpectantly.

My husband says he wanted to become a Jew before he became a Christian, and before that he had read about Buddhism and other religions. He was somewhat older than me at his conversion (well, 22 or 23 compared to my 15 years) and in the military. He read books and explored other faiths. "I don't have any imagination in that way," I said. God just walked into my consciousness, convicted me of my need of Him, and sent someone to help. No journey, really, at least none I was aware of. I fit Tim Keller's description here.

Of course, there is always a deep and intriguing back story we don't know about ....

Advent is the same. A baby is born. It happens all the time. But the back story! An eternity before that birth, thousands of characters, richness and sorrow and joy and want.

The main characters of the "Advent event" did have hope, which is what makes the delivery of the promise so wonderful. The people to whom Christ came were in darkness and hopeless and undeserving, and He entered their world.

Comments

Why to Read Fiction, Idea #27: Empathy, anyone?

The Idea #27 is tongue in cheek. But these are some ideas about writing fiction, which I have done in ten novels (and counting), a dozen short stories, and two produced plays (I know, not exactly the same). Background: In 2015 a colleague and I wrote an open educational resource public speaking textbook for a grant provided by our University System. We didn't realize at the time that it would go viral and be used all over the world within a few years. There are two reasons for that: it is good (as good as anything on the market) and it is free, although only in digital form. Check out www.exploringpublicspeaking.com for it. We also didn't know at the time that my co-author would die at 39 in 2016. I still miss him. Back to the point, I receive requests for the test banks every other day, and this morning I received one from Pennsylvania. The writer had a signature line: "Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in t...

Keeping Up Appearances? David's Surprise Anointing to Be King

Have you ever watched the show, Keeping Up Appearances? What it is. A comedy about a British woman who wants to be thought of as very high class even though her family is low class. Her name is Hyacinth Bucket but she pronounces it Bouquet. She wants everything perfect but her family works against her, and her neighbors run from her. We all know someone who wants to keep up appearances, and sometimes we do. In our everyday life, we depend on our eyes and we automatically trust them, at least at first, and we often don’t look closely or below the surface. Like puzzles. But we know that appearances can be deceiving, even though they catch us. So I wanted to show this video I saw recently because it’s disturbing but informative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FERa1AI2EK8 AI has gotten far better on making these deep fakes—videos that are not of anyone but totally generated by the software. Even though they look like someone, they are not. Of course, it is stealing fro...

Birdwatching

Whose world is this, anyway? My husband came out to the deck where I was reading, thinking, and taking long pauses to listen to birds and watch them visit the feeders. Nala and Butter were keeping the the squirrels away. The cardinals, like kings, were making sure they were fed first but wrens, sparrows, finches, robins, swifts sat in the trees calling and cackling. My Cornell Labs app has identified 18 in 18 minutes, some new ones included. “How interesting that God made all the birds have distinctive calls,” I said. “But I guess they are calling to their own kind, their mate and children.” “Do you think they are talking to each other?” he said. “Not like we do, no communicating, but signaling.” “I thought they were singing for us.” We laughed about that; our human-centric, self-centered view of things takes over. “They sing and make noises when we are not here, so it’s not for us. If they are singing for anyone, it’s God.” I had read Samuel’s speech to the nation in I Samuel 12,...

Parts of Speaking Publishing

Search This Blog