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My daughter Lucy was whisked away by her mother to a birthday party at her friend’s house. Birthday parties often seem tailor-made for that age: when you’re six years old, and still kind of believe in Santa, and still think dressing up as a princess or a knight is the only proper way to attend a party.

And of course, under Lucy’s arm: the obligatory gift. Humans may make grave errors, and generally behave like savages, but we still understand how important it is to celebrate a birthday. The celebration of existence.

* * * * *

I didn’t attend the party, having taken on the care of our other three children. But I didn’t have to be there to know, generally, how it went. I’m sure there was lots of loud chattering. Some anticipation as the gifts were opened. Sugar pulsing through little veins as chocolate cake and ice cream are consumed. Petty arguments and the sown seeds of some later, dear friendships.

But I can guarantee you one thing that didn’t happen.

I guarantee that when the guests arrived, they didn’t start handing gifts to each other to open. They didn’t leave the birthday-girl sitting at the head of the table empty-handed. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the birthday girl opened all the gifts, and the other little girls were excited to watch.

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Christmas. Whose birthday is it anyway? I know it’s not mine, or my kids, or my extended family’s, but then why do we get all the gifts?

And if I arrive at a great Christmas party, either in my own living room or some other place, and I wanted to give a gift to the birthday boy, how could I even do that?

“For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing?  When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?’

And the King will tell them, ‘I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

* * * * *

Oh.

* * * * *

Enjoy your Christmas. Have a great time eating and exchanging gifts. But don’t forget whose birthday Christmas celebrates. And perhaps, if you want to give a gift to the birthday boy, you might think about

feeding the hungry.

clothing the naked.

showing someone hospitality.

visiting someone in prison.

* * * * *

A Franciscan Benediction:

May God bless you with discomfort,
at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger,
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

My God bless you with tears,
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war,
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their
pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness,
to believe that you can make a difference in this world,
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

Amen.

* * * * *

Disclaimer #1 – to all of you who protest, “But my birthday is December 25th!”…Happy birthday. I think you can still get my point.

Disclaimer #2 – I stole the title “It’s Not Your Birthday” from Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Troy, OH. My theft is yet another example of the depravity of human beings.

New Year’s Day in Wendover, England. A mist covered everything but the uppermost green of the hills, turning every ridge into a series of islands to be explored, or sailed past. Our second floor cottage window was just high enough to see out over the fog. Most of the hedges were submerged.

It was a new year, and we were feeling rather adrift.

A fire roared in the living room stove, heating up the radiators so hot that we had to open the windows and let in some of the cold winter air. Woodsmoke escaped the chimney then settled around the house, combining with the mist. The house was a suitable fortress.

But at the prearranged time we donned our coats and boots and walked, hand in hand, down the lane through the fog. The winter sun rose above the mist, the submerged hedges, the line of trees, the island-hills, and began burning off the haze. Just as the fog was disappearing we arrived at the top of the pasture beside our house.

Our landlords stood there, waved us over. J wore knee-high Wellington boots and a smart hunting jacket. V was less formal, but just as formidable, as she cracked her shotgun in half and stuffed in two shells.

“Ever shoot before?” she asked.

Maile and I both shook our heads, no.

She motioned for us to move around behind her. The fog was lifting. Stanley the gardener dropped two florescent orange clay pigeons into a small contraption.

“Pull!” V shouted.

The two targets eased into the morning air, forming an arc through the mist. Then

Boom!

Pause

Boom!

Both targets exploded in mid-air, showering the field with small fragments.

“Well done!” J shouted. V smiled.

* * * * *

Another day, another gathering. Eventually 15-20 of J and V’s children and their friends arrived, all in various stages of recovery from the previous night’s revelry in London. Some winced at the firing of the guns. Others grinned. A small competition was organized.

I did not win.

* * * * *

The shooting went on for most of the day. Then a light lunch, then more competitions. The ever dutiful Stanley towed more and more clay pigeons to the field. When he was finally convinced to take a turn of his own, he blasted both targets before they reached their apex. All eyebrows rose, and a smattering of applause sounded out across the valley.

Finally, dinner. Warmth. The large round kitchen table was surrounded by faces flushed from the heat of the stove and the fire warming the entire house from the formal living room. Shots, good and bad, were revisited over steaming curry and lamb and potatoes. The winner, whose identity escapes me, was expected to stand during one of J’s not so short presentation speeches. It drew many laughs and toasts. The winner was also expected to give a short acceptance speech amidst the clinking of champagne glasses.

Clearly, once again, we had landed square in the middle of close friendships, traditions that went on before and after us. These were roommates, childhood buddies, young people who had left the nest to chase something, yet still returned for every New Year’s Day clay pigeon shoot: a pilgrimage of sorts. And, somehow, they made us feel at home.

We walked home that night, shoulders sore from the recoil. But it was a good soreness: the kind that comes from encountering new things.

* * * * *

To read the first installment of England Stories, click HERE

I first heard about Dan and Julie Clark when they were working with orphans in Russia through Children’s Hopechest. During one of their visits to our small town in Virginia, Julie joined a group of our friends and us for dinner. The next morning I had breakfast with Dan and Dan (different friend, same name).

They are the type of people I think of as friends, even though we’ve probably never spent more than a few hours together. They are good friends of some of our best friends, so that always carries some weight. They care about things that we care about. They are passionate about living out their faith in practical ways: by helping the poor and the marginalized in the world.

So we are friends, even though they may not recognize me if we passed each other in the street…

In the years since I last saw them, they’ve started a non-profit called Doma, which “exists to embrace and empower vulnerable women and children whose homes and lives have been filled with anger, abuse, hostility, pain, and injustice. We believe that communities can be restored and rebuilt.” Their work is done both abroad and within the US.

So, the reason for my blog today…

They’ve recently been given this amazing opportunity – every penny they raise in donations between now and the end of the year will be doubled, up to $27,000.

If you’re drawn to the fight against human trafficking, or if you’d like to help them “embrace and empower vulnerable women,” now is the time to act. It’s Christmas – a flat screen television would be nice. A new game system or expensive piece of jewelry would be a lot of fun. But how about, this Christmas, you help someone get a fresh start? You’re money might be just what is needed to tip the balance in someone’s life.

Check out the blog post about the matching grant challenge HERE

Check out Doma’s website HERE

Check out a powerful story about some of the women that they help, HERE

To have a Merry Christmas, click HERE.

Kidding.

My wife recently washed a glass mason jar in the sink and set it on the counter.

“Do you know where that jar came from?” she asked me.

The answer didn’t come to me right away.

“No. Who?”

“This was the jar of strawberry jam that Andi gave us. Didn’t her mom make that?”

* * * * *

I am not a fan of sultry summer days, but in the dead of winter, when whisps of stale snow blow across the street, and every pond has a thick skin of ice, there is something appealing about walking around in shorts and feeling the sun hot against your face. I find myself thinking about summer.

This past summer my kids went on a toast-for-breakfast kick.  And their jam of choice? The fresh strawberry jam which Andi gave to us, the jam that her mother made from scratch.

* * * * *

We traveled to Rochester the week of Thanksgiving this year, but I kept an eye on Andi’s blog. Her mom was dying of cancer. Then I went a few days without getting on line, too caught up in our own celebrations and late-night revelry to pay attention to the outside world. Black Friday at Target was a storm. Finally, Saturday the 27th, I made the rounds to my favorite blogs.

I read Andi’s Thanksgiving Day post:

Mom passed away at 4:30 this morning. Dad woke me, and I rushed to her. I laid one hand on her chest and one on her face. She was not there…

Yet, on this day of Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the healing that will, inevitably, come. I am grateful for the complete healing and perfection that Mom now lives in…I am grateful in this massive grief that there is something – something amazing – beyond it.

Now, to walk through the shards of pain that pierce my heart, to absorb them into myself, to build scar tissue that will heal and strengthen my flesh.

I thought that this was perhaps one of the bravest things I had ever read.

* * * * *

I stare at the empty mason jar. In the summer it was messy and sticky from the kids attempts to make their own toast. Now, in the winter, it is clean as crystal. The glass is smooth and unwavering.

I think about this small gift that Andi and her mother gave to us.

I think that we will be remembered by what we give.

Today I’m guest posting over at Jason Boyett’s blog for his Friday “Voices of Doubt.” The link to head on over there is at the bottom of the page. Jason’s got an awesome blog, one I recommend checking out on a regular basis. Especially today. Now back to your regularly scheduled blogram.

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A few of my friends who also read the blog suggested I do a better job of helping people get to know me. So here are a few random facts about me:

These are my kids:

From left to right:

Lucy loves to read and is a 2nd mother to the younger two

Abra is rarely this pensive. She’s usually rather goofy.

Cade says some funny stuff, and in this photo is wrestling with

Sammy, who is a general trouble maker and the life of our family party. His favorite thing to do these days is select a weapon from the bottom drawer (wooden spoon, pizza cutter) and chase Abra around the house.

This is my wife:

I chose this picture because it’s pretty typical of us – me acting goofy while she just shakes her head. The look she currently has on her face is usually followed by a “but-what-can-I-do” look. If the brownies in the teeth and general disheveled nature of my own self don’t give it away, I feel obligated to tell you that I married way out of my league.

We met in college as English majors during a semester when we had 5 classes together. She got 100% on a midterm, and I scored in the low 70s. This was on purpose, as it gave me the perfect excuse to ask her to study with me.

I’ve always loved her quite a bit, but even more so now that she’s pretty much followed me around the world, first to Florida, then to England (that story is HERE), then to Virginia, and finally on a hair-brained adventure to my hometown in Pennsylvania where we decided I should try to make a living as a writer (that story is HERE).

Three questions for you folks out there:

What is your name?

Where have you lived?

What do you do to embarrass the ones that you love?

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Now head on over to Jason Boyett’s blog, O Me of Little Faith. You won’t regret it. Well, today you might, but most of the time, when I’m not guest posting, you’ll love it.

When I was a kid, probably after the third or fourth time I went to the front of the church to recommit my life to Christ and ensure my entrance into heaven, I started to feel kind of guilty. What if God found out that the only reason I loved him was because he had the big book with all the names, and I had the secret knowledge that, if my name wasn’t in that book, I’d end up with a serious sunburn? What if he wasn’t cool with me using him as an eternal thermostat – believe in him and the temperature remains a balmy 68 degrees, FOREVER; forsake him and you’re looking at lakes of molten ore?

I am not a big fan of the beach, or sunscreen. I had trouble enjoying Las Vegas because of the 110 degree weather.

I knew that hell would not suit me.

* * * * *

Christians have convinced people that everything is all about what happens after you die. You’ve seen the signs, listing out those who have fallen short and are “going to hell.” The most quoted Bible verses are those having to do with what gets you in to heaven (or not).

Avoiding hell seems to be the primary reason for being a Christian.

In some ways this works out well: when faith is eternity based, and the result of that can never be confirmed on this side of death, then you can wield that thing pretty recklessly. In other words, it’s easy to say “if you don’t do this and stop doing that, you can’t get into heaven,” because you can’t be proven wrong.

It’s much more difficult to say, “Live like this and you’ll be happy and peaceful and content,” because someone can try it and find out it’s not exactly true.

* * * * *

Pretty early on in his teaching, Jesus begins saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

Not, “repent, for that will get you into the kingdom of heaven.”

Not, “repent, and then after you die things will be good for you.”

No, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It’s right in front of you.

Then, in one of his most well-known series of teachings, he blesses the poor in spirit and those who are persecuted for doing good things, saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. IS theirs. Not “will be” theirs after they die. IS theirs.

My favorite translation says “The kingdom of the heavens is among us!” The kingdom of heaven is here! Look around! Open your eyes!

* * * * *

What if being a Christian meant more than just believing the right things, but had more to do with the tangible results of the life being lived?

What if being a Christian was less about avoiding hell and more about bringing as much of heaven to earth as is possible?

* * * * *

This is what I love about the story of Christmas: God put heaven in his rear view mirror and came to earth to bless the marginalized, the rejected, the hurting.

Would that more of us Christians could do the same.