This pretty much sums up why we don't have a Christmas tree

There's lots of possible excuses I could use on why we don't have a Christmas tree:
* It's a Germanic pagan tradition and I'm not a Germanic pagan.
* They drop needles and make a mess and I don't want to deal with it.
* Trees often represent fertility and the last thing I need in this house after having had twins before my firstborn was even 2 is more fertility.

But none of those are really the real reason why we don't have a tree. The real reason is that I just can't get past this idea that we're celebrating life by killing something and then enshrining its dying carcass, as wonderful as it might smell, in our house. It just feels all wrong to me.

I have nothing against people doing Christmas trees. But I just find that year after year, even when the kids beg, I can't make myself do it. The last time we had a tree was in 2001 when I bought a live one in a pot. It was only a few feet tall, cost an arm and a leg, and then we were stuck with finding a place to plant it afterwards. (It now lives somewhere out on the plains with my brother-in-law's parents and is apparently doing well.)

This year my mom took pity on the kids and gave them a little plastic tree that they've set out front next to the Christmas cactus that I told them they could put the presents under. They seem OK with that. Then I showed them this cartoon. With my girls, cartoons speak louder than words. I'll be curious to see if they beg for a tree next year or not. To be honest, their begging has always seemed a little half-hearted.

(Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

The beginning of wisdom

A friend of mine just retweeted this:

RT @JohnPiper The beginning of wisdom is that I have absolutely no say in how God should run the world, and I am peaceful with that.

It seemed to fit in with our previous discussion in which I used a gardener and ant analogy, so I thought I'd share it here.

10 strangest Jesus sightings of 2009

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2009/12/top-10-places-jesus-revealed-himself-this-year.html
I can't see Jesus on Mars or on the toilet, can you?

He's plain as day on this candy bar, though, eh?

Majesty

"On Maui, one November, Hugh and I went swimming, and turned to find a gigantic sea turtle coming up between us. As gentle as a cow she was, and with a cow's dopey, almost lovesick expression on her face.  That, to me, was worth the entire trip, worth my entire life, practically.  For to witness majesty, to find yourself literally touched by it--isn't that what we've all been waiting for?" -- David Sedaris, in his article Loggerheads: Sea turtles and me which was included in the January 7th, 2009 edition of The New Yorker.

God's noblest work

I'm reading a book called Revelations: Diaries of Women which includes excerpts from a wide variety of women including the wife of Tolstoy, the wife of Dostoevsky, Anne Frank, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. Many of the women that I have read so far appear to adore some man or other (often husbands, but Dorothy Wordsworth adored her brother, William.) It was getting to a point that I honestly started to wonder if men were different or better or some such back in the day. (Or perhaps the women led more pathetic lives?)

But then I got to a quote by Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women.  When she was 10 years old she wrote the following in her diary:

Father asked us what was God's noblest work.  Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad; babies never are.

I had to laugh at that.

So what would you say is God's noblest work?  (Atheists can play along by deferring to the God part for the moment and focusing on the noblest work bit.) I'm tempted to pick something mushy like "love" or "community." But I think the theme of the quote involves tangible objects. Chocolate jumps to mind, but that might be a bit of a silly answer.

I suppose a question like this calls to mind another question, "What does it mean to be noble?"

I guess I'm going to go with "People" as my answer for now. We're such complex creatures that I think that makes us pretty impressive. But noble?  See, I'm not sure if we fit that part. I'll have to keep thinking on this.

The Living Nativity « The Skit Guys

Link

Hmmm, I haven't used this share into Multiply feature before.  Even though the link under the video says "watch preview" I think you still end up seeing the whole thing.

The blurb under the vid. describes it as: "A hilarious and heartwarming mockumentary that tells the story of an actor performing in a living nativity who takes his role way too seriously."

Safe Ground

[A dorky poem by yours truly.]

As long as we continue to pedal
   through the same ideas and concepts
     every Sunday
As long as "they" are always wrong
   and "we" are always right
Then we are on safe ground.

Some days we seem to veer near the edge.
We come close to an interesting or new idea.
We consider that there might be more to consider.
And then we get back on task.

If we really believe what we believe
Then aren't we already on safe ground?
Shouldn't we feel safe then,
   pedaling outside our comfort zone?

*Sigh*

Another Sunday spent
   remaining on safe ground.