The Lord's Prayer (My Paraphrase)

(Matthew 6:9-13)

You are Father

You are Holy

You are King

You feed us

You forgive us

You deliver us

Your kingdom

Your power

Your glory

Forever

And ever

Amen

And The Winner Is...

…Tracy Ketrow!

Tracy’s entry into the 2^nd Annual Infinite Queso “Haiku for the Holidays” Contest won the most votes. She is the winner of a $10 gift card to iTunes or Starbucks. (Tracy, does a Starbucks card even work in Italy? Just let me know!)

Big thanks to everyone who submitted an entry and voted in the contest!

Happy Holidays!

Bono on The Church and the AIDS Crisis

Love this clip of Bono bringing it in an interview with Bill Hybels at Willow Creek’s leadership summit a couple of years ago.

Bono (borrowing a quote from someone else): “Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Find out what God is doing…because it’s already blessed.”

Click here if the video doesn’t show up in your browser.

Thanks to Jenn for sharing the clip with me!

Vote Now! 2nd Annual "Haiku for the Holidays" Finalists Selected

[UPDATE: The polls are now closed.]

Big thanks to everyone who submitted an entry in the 2nd Annual InfiniteQueso “Haiku for the Holidays” Contest!

There were so many great haiku…it was really hard to choose finalists. Nevertheless, here they are (in order of original post date):

From Brian:

Buddy the Elf Rocks 
"You sit on a throne of lies!"
Shows He's Prophetic

From Tracy:

Holiday debate
Spouse says it's a Christmas flick
Opinions DIE HARD

From (Tracy’s husband) Scott:

Famous Christmas names?
Donner, Dancer, John McClain
Say "Yippie Kai Yay!"

From Elly:

Guardian angel,
Says It's a Wonderful Life,
Now, give me my wings!

Now the contest is in your hands. Who will be the winner of the $10 gift card to iTunes or Starbucks? Vote now at the polling booth at the top right of this blog.

The polls will close at midnight (CST) on Wednesday, December 15. The grand prize winner will be announced on Thursday, December 16. Happy voting!

C.S. Lewis on The Virgin Birth

"No woman ever conceived a child, no mare a foal, without Him. But once, and for a special purpose, He dispensed with that long line which is His instrument: once His life-giving finger touched a woman without passing through the ages of interlocked events. Once the great glove of Nature was taken off His hand. His naked hand touched her. There was of course a unique reason for it. That time He was creating not simply a man but the Man who was to be Himself: was creating Man anew; was beginning, at this divine and human point, the New Creation of all things. The whole soiled and weary universe quivered at this direct injection of essential life—direct, uncontaminated, not drained through all the crowded history of Nature.”

—from Miracles

GUEST POST: Advent Thoughts as I Wait for My Son

Last year at this time my friend Susie and her husband Ben were only a few weeks away from (finally) meeting—and adopting—their son Charlie from his home country of Rwanda. Many of you understand the special form of waiting that accompanies the adoption process. With Susie's permission I am re-posting her thoughts about her season of waiting here on my blog. May you be blessed as I was when I first read…

Advent Thoughts as I Wait for My Son

Advent hangs over me thick this year—like a bulky, itchy cloak when you're 9 months pregnant and can't get comfortable and feeling like I've been riding this donkey for-freaking-ever.

I think I get it a little more this year—how Mary might of felt, what advent means. How it's not a celebration as much as it is a Waiting. A hopeful waiting to be sure, waiting for a son. But we both wait in uncertainty, which makes the uncomfortable and scary hide the hope sometimes. I wait in the uncertainty of when, and how big and what are his needs. She waited in the uncertainty of when and where and what will all of this mean, and I better not have been dreaming that Angel Thing.

But we both wait for the Promise. Of a son.

Finally, for Mary, it happened. And as blood soaked the hay and she felt her stretched-out skin settle back into place while shepherds crowded her desire for modesty, I wonder if she thought: Is THIS what I've been waiting for?

And when He said to her, this son whom she birthed and nursed, "Woman what does this have to do with me?" did she wonder with indignance—Is THIS what I waited for?

And when she heard with horror of His arrest, did her wonder turn to anger? Did she shout at the God who moved over her in conception that this is NOT what I've been waiting for!

And when she went to visit the tomb, feeling mournful, lost, hopeful, crazy, and heartbroken - what was she waiting for then?

How many years went by after she buried her Son? How many years more did she have to wait before her own death could finally bring her answers....

Susie with her son Charlie, Fall 2010

and a mansion

and a warm embrace that would know no end

and golden streets

and vanquished enemies
and an end to oppression
and a faithful son's promise that "Mama—THIS is what you've been waiting for"

This Advent, I don't celebrate the past as much as I accept the invitation God has given me to know what it's like to wait for a son. This son I don't look to as my Savior—I won't put that kind of pressure on him—but I can identify with another woman and a nation's long, arduous, mostly hopeful but too-often hopeless Wait.

There's sadness in waiting because it's a constant reminder that what you're hoping for isn't here... yet. But there's hope too, and that's where my celebration rests.

Click here to read more from Susie at her inspiring—and often hilarious—blog, Here Only.

Haiku from the Husband

Thanks to everyone for a great start on my Holiday Haiku Contest! To read the entries so far—or to add your own—click here.

My husband got up with the kids Saturday morning while I slept in a little. (Yeah, he’s amazing like that.)

When I did wake up and come downstairs, the kids were already fed and happily playing in their pajamas. My husband was cradling his coffee and scribbling on an 8"X11” notepad.

Awesome guy that he is, he was creating haiku to enter into my contest. Even though he knows I can’t ever let him win the prize.

Unfortunately he had neglected to read the part of the contest rules that specified the theme of this year’s contest: Favorite Holiday Movies.

I couldn’t let his haiku go unshared…they were just too funny. I decided the best of them needed a post of their own. Ergo I give you…

Holiday (but not movie-related) Haiku from the Husband

Santa bringing gifts

Nine reindeer pulling his sleigh

His view is not good

Santa flew solo

Mrs. Claus chose to say home

Glee was on TV

Sleigh is crash-landing

Snow is scattered everywhere

Santa hit Frosty

2nd Annual "Haiku For the Holidays" Contest

Announcing: The official opening of the 2^nd Annual Infinite Queso “Haiku* for the Holidays” Contest!

The grand prize (ok, really it’s more like a stocking stuffer) will be a $10 iTunes or Starbucks gift card.

Here’s how to play…

InfiniteQueso’s 2^nd Annual “Haiku for the Holidays” Contest Rules:

1. The theme for this year’s contest is “Favorite Holiday Movies.”
2. All entries must follow traditional haiku form: 17 syllables in three lines—5 in the first line, 7 in the second, 5 in the third.
3. Bonus points will be awarded for adherence to traditional Japanese form and nuance. For more information, read here.
4. Judging will be based on creativity, insight, depth, and/or humor.
5. All entries must be clean! No vulgarity or cursing. Any entry violating this rule will be deleted.
6. All entries must be an original composition of the entrant.
7. All entrants must reveal their identities. Anonymous entries will not be eligible for the grand prize. (If you don’t have a Google or Blogger account, feel free to just include your name in the body of your comment.)
8. There is no limit to the number of entries a contestant may submit.
9. All entries must be posted in the comments section of this post by midnight (CST) on Saturday, December 11, 2010.
10. Finalists will be announced in a new post on Sunday, December 12, 2010.
11. The grand prize winner will be selected from among the finalists by a public vote. The polls will close at midnight (CST) on Wednesday, December 15, 2010.
12. The grand prize winner will be announced on Thursday, December 16, 2010.

The contest is official open! You may now post your entries in the comments section below.

*I realize many of the entries in this contest will technically be senryu. However “Senryu for the Season” didn’t quite have the same accessibility as “Haiku for the Holidays.” My apologies to purists.

God Made A Promise: Our Family's Advent Tradition

Every year I look forward to December 1.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving our family goes out for breakfast, then picks out a REAL Christmas tree. The same morning we begin playing holiday music.

But we wait until December 1 to begin our readings from God Made A Promise, the advent book I put together several years ago.

Last year I mentioned how, when my kids were still babies, my friend Tracy helped me think through creative ways to help my family focus on Christ during the Christmas season. She shared an idea she had been trying out on her own family.

She had come across the text from an out-of-print book by Dorothy Van Woerkom called, When All the World Was Waiting: An Advent Book for Children. The book was a collection of 27 short paragraphs, each telling a small part of the story of how God’s people waited for Messiah for so long, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

Tracy made 27 ornaments, each corresponding to a paragraph. Then each day throughout Advent their family would read a paragraph together, then pull out the corresponding ornament and hang it in a designated place in their home.

I LOVED this idea. But I didn’t love Van Woerkom’s text. So for several years I wrote (and re-wrote) my own version. In God Made A Promise, I tell the story of God’s faithfulness in sending us the Savior He promised, from Creation through Christmas morning.

It’s nothing fancy: just pages printed from a Word document. My ornaments are pretty lame—I might be the world’s LEAST craft-y person. We display them in an old-school, store-bought Advent calendar. But my kids don’t care. We’ve read through the book every Christmas season for years now; it’s become one of our family’s most important and well-loved holiday traditions. And we start again tonight!

Many friends have asked me over the years if I would share with them what I wrote, as well as my list of ornaments. Of course I am always happy to—my idea was borrowed in the first place! If any of you would like me to send you a copy, feel free to email me here.

What are your favorite holiday traditions? What helps you focus on Christ in the midst of the ever-increasing busyness of the season?

My Advent book contains 25 daily readings. Each night in December, we read a chapter together as a family. Then we draw out that day’s ornament from this wall calendar and hang it on our tree. Throughout the season the kids will search for these ornaments among the others, and we review parts of the story told so far. Holiday visitors often ask about the calendar. We’ve had some great conversations about our family’s tradition.