The ultimate gift...

...wasn't given this year. The ultimate gift was given when "the word became flesh and dwelt among us." Can you imagine how incredible the news was -- to Mary, to Joseph, to the shepherds! This was God at his best, breaking all traditions, all taboos, all imaginative possibilities.

Rejoice, rejoice, Immanuel
Has come to thee, oh Israel!

Blog resolution

Two weeks before the new year, I'm already resolving to make this blog significantly better in 2006. There is so much information which presents revelatory power that I want to do my part in spreading it.

However, I resolve to do this understanding that we are warned in Scripture that in the last days, men will be "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." The information society we live in can be a paradoxical positive and negative influence to our knowledge of "the truth," which is Jesus Christ. We must never forget to pause regularly and breathe Jesus deeply.

Perhaps Kathleen Norris sheds light on this in The Cloister Walk, when speaking of Benedictine monks studying the Bible late at night by candlelight:

Their approach was far less narcissistic than our own tends to be, in that their goal when reading scripture was to see Christ in every verse, and not a mirror image of themselves. (quoted by Donald Miller in Searching for God Knows What)

Is there any better time than the Christmas season to be reminded of this?