"Religious" Christmas Stamp

For the past several years, I have made it a point to ask for the "religious" Christmas stamp. I pick the Virgin and Child art rather than snow people or Christmas trees or antique toys or nutcrackers or whatever else is offered, even though those others can be cutely tempting. But I may have to be even more specific. For several years in the USA, postal customers wanting a "religious" holiday stamp in the Fall can/could select from Virgin and Child or EID or Hanukkah stamps. So, I think I will need to be even more vocal in my religious stamp preference and ask specifically for the Christian stamp! That could be a small witness to our special celebration.
Merry (almost) Christmas!

Advent, NOT Christmas

Here it is the second Wednesday in the Season of Advent. I am preparing for Evening Prayer and expect a small group to be present. I know I am supposed to focus on anticipation of Christ, the coming of the Lord. In other words, NO Christmas carols. Yet, it is the joy of Christmas I am looking forward to as well. What a great time to pull out all the Christian celebration and the secular world will even join in a little of it. So I wait -- but I want to get there -- part of that "proleptic eschatology" that my buddy Ryan Mills reminded me of. (Yes, he is a pastor, too.) Basically, it is the "already, but not yet" nature of the faith we have. All the promise is ours, but we we have not yet seen it all. That does not make it less true, just less realized. Ah, well, perhaps, I could at least put up this much Christmas decoration (my house would be on the right hand side -- that's where you want to be when it comes to God!).



(The red lights say "Ditto" in case it is not showing well.)