Advent Day Four

Monday, 2 December: ²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Genesis 1:26a

Matt: What is it about me that is like God and why would He choose to make me that way? Is that thing what made me worth the visit? Perhaps it is something intrinsic in the ability to choose? We take choice for granted, elevating it to a human right. Currently, we look at choice as inviolate. One of the greatest insults is to limit choice. My students chafe under any restriction, especially when it involves attire or use of cell-phones. They regard limits as a constraint on their character. I suppose that in some way they are correct. God made us in His image and He likes choice, despite the peril choice brings with it. Like an artist with a deft hand and an eye for subtle color variations, God chose carefully as He painted the tapestry of my life. When He tinted my independent streak; perhaps He looked in the mirror.

Advent Day Three

Sunday, 1 December: ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:3

All things, good things such as sunsets and bad things such as rebellious angels. When God chose to create, He accepted risk and the attendant ultimate sacrifice. The majestic beauty of an isolated and impassable mountain range, His. The calm stillness of a meadow full of wildflowers, His. Soaring geese with wings flashing in the winter sun, His. The soft tenderness of an infant’s cheek, His. The itchy warmth of a wool blanket, His. Wood for a manger and a cross, His. The ability to choose between good and evil, His. A small ridge suitable for a tiny village, His. A craggy Judean hill fit for crucifixion, His.

Advent Day Two

Saturday, 30 November: ¹ In the beginning, God created…Genesis 1:1a

Matt: God chose creativity. In a wonderful burst, He thought of something new and previously undone. Sadly, we frequently use creation as a measuring rod, determining the validity of a person’s faith, focusing on our own interpretation of scripture instead of the marvelous wonder of God’s conception. The beauty wrought by Him astounds, especially when taken in the context of the resultant personal pain caused by His choice. Once unleashed, creation began choosing its own path; a path that would ultimately require His personal intervention.  But God still chose to give His thoughts shape and form. You and I, components of that wild and unfettered burst of creativity, share in the legacy of choice. What will we do with this great gift, the thing that links us, however ephemerally, to Advent and divinity?

Candace: "The only true King is and always will be Jesus. Jesus, who was slain and rose again before the foundation of the Earth, had a hand in creation. Nothing was made without Jesus. Every single thing was created through Jesus. He was born Christmas Day and He is the Alpha and Omega. The Word is and was and is to come. HALLELUJAH!!"

Welcome to Advent

Welcome to Advent: As you know, each year I pen Advent musings. For me, Advent starts the Friday after Thanksgiving. I bend my thoughts toward Bethlehem and Jesus’ arrival. It seems to me that in our modern practice of Christianity, we minimize advent, focusing on self-actualization and gift-giving and getting. This year I want to consider choice and the role choice plays in this great unfolding drama that began when God chose to create and continues today throughout creation and indeed, in each of our hearts. This year, in a change, my daughter will join me in this process, perhaps daily, perhaps periodically. After all, it is her choice.

Friday, 29 November: ¹⁸ knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. ²⁰ He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you. I Peter 1:18-20

Matt: We choose often, our lives taking on the shape of our choices. Some choices are weighty, requiring great thought and prayer; should I marry her, should I accept the promotion and move. Many choices are immaterial; do I want Columbian or Ethiopian coffee, should I wear the blue shirt or the white one. So we frequently choose in haste, with little thought given to the direction the choice will bend our lives. But at times, seemingly minor and inconsequential choices accrue to later blessing or, sadly, heartbreaking failure. With our limited foresight we seek to avoid catastrophic problems, but God does not operate that way. He chose to proceed, knowing the pain He would suffer due to His choice. He weighed the consequences, counted the joy as greater, and so we have Advent. In many ways, Advent is a celebration of choices, His and ours. So this season, perhaps we can let our hearts consider choices, choices ill-conceived and ruinous, and choices wondrous and powerful.

Candace: We have never had it all together. Our ancestors had ways that were futile. Nonetheless, Jesus (sent by God) gave is very blood and body. He gave all He is for us. He saved us, not with one billion dollars, but by his victory on the cross. We are saved here today. RIGHT NOW, we are free. Jesus was and is perfect like we couldn’t be. Before God made planet Earth, Jesus had already conquered the cross, sin, and the entire underbelly of creation. For our sake, He did this. He is the Son of Man and Son of God. I LOVE JESUS!

Armed Teachers

                Like everyone else, I watched in horror as events unfolded in the Midland Odessa area. Then a friend of mine asked me as a retired soldier and current teacher if I supported the idea of arming teachers in classrooms to protect against a mad gunman or similar situation. I do not support such an idea. I believe it to be doomed to failure for the reasons listed below. There are other reasons, these are just the ones that come quickly to my mind.

                I am a teacher. I am a teacher that also happens to be a veteran. I do not have time to adequately prepare for duties as a school marshal; no teacher has that kind of spare time. All teachers struggle to prepare for and execute their classroom duties. We do not have time to add to that burden. Serving as a school marshal implies obtaining and maintaining an extremely high degree of proficiency in marksmanship and armed intruder tactics. Those skills perish very quickly, requiring extensive commitments of time and ammunition for maintenance. Muzzle awareness, trigger control, identification friend or foe, and situational awareness are only a few of the skills required for success in armed conflict. Without proper and continued training an armed teacher is simply another out of control factor in an already chaotic situation and is more likely to inflict additional casualties. Additionally, how will school systems, already strapped for cash, find the funds required to ensure that teachers are adequately armed and continually trained. This is another duty and pressure we do not need as teachers.

                What about the need to adequately secure weapons? Sooner or later a teacher will take a short cut and toss a loaded weapon into a drawer or purse. Then, some inquisitive student will find it and play with it. Once unleashed there is no recall or cancel function of a bullet. How will we explain to the parents and loved ones of the wounded or dead from just such an accident? How will the teacher live with the guilt incurred by such an incident? I carry scars from the lawful and expedient things I did in combat. I am blessed, they do not impede upon my life in a limiting fashion; however, they remain and are an ever-present fact of my existence. A thoughtful examination of the statistics shows that schools are one of the safest places for children. Why add to the existential peril by adding in the factor of unsecured hand-guns.

As a combat veteran of multiple deployments in a variety of locations, I understand the confusion and chaos of armed conflict. No one knows who they will react once rounds start going back and forth in earnest. No amount of training, no number of hours spent in simulations adequately prepare you for the intensity of that moment. Some of us summon the courage to act appropriately. Some run and hide. Others lose the judgement and ability to make well reasoned rational decisions and then act upon them. Arming teachers assumes that they will make good and sound decisions in the heat of the moment. We have no such guarantee. While I trust my fellow teachers, I do not want them wandering the halls during an emergency. Most handguns will put a round through sheet-rock walls with hardly a decrease in velocity. A locker will slow them down, perhaps even stop them, but bullets kill indiscriminately. A policeman once told me that in all the shooter incidents in our nation no one behind a closed and locked door had been shot. It seems to me that a better strategy would be to teach everyone to turn off the lights, shut and lock the doors, gather their students in an unobserved spot, and wait for relief by appropriate authorities. An even better strategy would be a critical cultural examination.

The time is well past for us to set aside our enthrallment with guns and violence. We need to spend time and effort divesting ourselves of the love of armed might in all its guises. I know that many of my friends will drag out the second amendment leaning heavily on the phrase, “…the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” I understand. I would encourage those that hold that phrase up as sacrosanct to look at the first half of the amendment which reads, “A well regulated…” Evidently, the framers had some idea of the right to bear arms being well regulated. I would propose that they did not envision our nation as an armed camp that regularly degenerated into a combat zone where women and children regularly suffered life-changing and mortal wounds. Finally, I spent several years in combat zones, places where I had to go about armed and wearing body armor. I do not want to spend my remaining years watching my nation turn itself into some dark parody of a cyber-punk dystopian western.