Thursday, December 30, 2004
Speaking of miracles
By Russell King
This is the time of year when you most often hear the world “miracle.” There’s one in a manger and another on 34th Street, and it seems every publication on the newsstand has a seasonal miracle story, from defying death and disease to finding lost loves. Well, I’ve got one, too.
My miracle story, however, has no angels of the winged breed, no heavenly lights of the celestial sort, no precious gifts of the material kind. Mine has no threat to life or limb, no lost puppies, no thaw of stone-cold hearts. Nothing about this miracle would qualify it for a magazine, mini-series or movie. Only those closest to me even know anything happened.
Still, the miracle is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s a life-changing thing. You could say that, for me, it’s a life-saving thing, because it is what has made life worth living. No. Strike that. It’s more than that. This miracle has caused a transformation that took me from survival, through living all the way to thriving.
From about age 15 until this miracle occurred, I was the human version of a fancy balloon: looks great from the outside, but empty on the inside. By “outside” I don’t mean my physical appearance, which I’ve always considered rather goofy, but rather that life seemed to be a successful venture for me. Academics, arts and sports all turned out very nicely for me during school years. After school, it didn’t take long to find satisfying work using my best abilities. Promotions, home ownership, community involvement—it all fell neatly into place. I even reached the writer’s pinnacle by publishing two books. None of it got inside the balloon.
Over the years, the youthful hot air that keeps empty men afloat begins to leak out, the bright bravado begins to fade, and the balloon begins to wither. It felt, to me, like a long, slow way to quietly lie down and die. Even “die” seemed too substantive. I had the sense that each day brought me closer to that moment when the balloon would be deflated and nothing would be left but the emptiness, and I would simply stop. Not die, just stop being.
Outwardly ascending; inwardly descending.
Oddly enough, through it all, I had a sense of what was missing. Home. Change addresses, change states, change schools, change jobs, and the question that haunted me through it all was “What am I doing here?” I was desperate for home without knowing where or what home might be. I only knew I wasn’t there.
In his poem “The Death of the Hired Man,” Robert Frost has a husband and wife debate the meaning of home. He thinks it’s “the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” She calls it “something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”
She has the better of the two. Home, it seems to me, is a thing of grace, of love without conditions attached. If you have to somehow earn entry, you’re on the porch of something other than home.
Home is my miracle. Without deserving or even knowing, I wandered up the walk, tripped over the front step and stumbled in. When I looked up, I was surrounded by seven angels (one wife, six kids), each offering me his or her unique gifts. Their loves, of course, top the list, but I also receive the gifts of who each of them is and—perhaps more importantly—who I am with each of them. I am “Dad.” And in every case, it’s a vast improvement over who I once was.
Inwardly ascending; outwardly.... Outwardly is irrelevant now. Like so many other miracle stories, this one is about a love-driven, life-giving liberation. Mine is a liberation from the inconsequential.
This miracle has a heavenly light, too, but it doesn’t shine from the sky. I see divine light in the eyes of these seven angels, each revealing--like crystals breaking the bands of sunlight into separate colors—a different quality of the sacred.
I don’t know whether the events of the miracle stories actually happened, but I’m certain the stories absolutely true. Every day, I experience the miracle of rebirth. Every day, I look into the eyes of God. Every day, I am engulfed by the miraculous: I am home.
Note: If you've enjoyed reading American Dad, you can show your appreciation by sending a donation to one of the three places listed here. I have good friends who are doing exceptionally good things at each of these places. Thanks!
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church ELCA, 5701 Raymond Rd., Madison, WI 53711
St. John's Lutheran Church, N3882 County Highway KK, Weyauwega, WI 54983-9736
Trinity Lutheran Church, 3 S 460 Curtis Avenue, Warrenville, IL 60555
By Russell King
This is the time of year when you most often hear the world “miracle.” There’s one in a manger and another on 34th Street, and it seems every publication on the newsstand has a seasonal miracle story, from defying death and disease to finding lost loves. Well, I’ve got one, too.
My miracle story, however, has no angels of the winged breed, no heavenly lights of the celestial sort, no precious gifts of the material kind. Mine has no threat to life or limb, no lost puppies, no thaw of stone-cold hearts. Nothing about this miracle would qualify it for a magazine, mini-series or movie. Only those closest to me even know anything happened.
Still, the miracle is the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s a life-changing thing. You could say that, for me, it’s a life-saving thing, because it is what has made life worth living. No. Strike that. It’s more than that. This miracle has caused a transformation that took me from survival, through living all the way to thriving.
From about age 15 until this miracle occurred, I was the human version of a fancy balloon: looks great from the outside, but empty on the inside. By “outside” I don’t mean my physical appearance, which I’ve always considered rather goofy, but rather that life seemed to be a successful venture for me. Academics, arts and sports all turned out very nicely for me during school years. After school, it didn’t take long to find satisfying work using my best abilities. Promotions, home ownership, community involvement—it all fell neatly into place. I even reached the writer’s pinnacle by publishing two books. None of it got inside the balloon.
Over the years, the youthful hot air that keeps empty men afloat begins to leak out, the bright bravado begins to fade, and the balloon begins to wither. It felt, to me, like a long, slow way to quietly lie down and die. Even “die” seemed too substantive. I had the sense that each day brought me closer to that moment when the balloon would be deflated and nothing would be left but the emptiness, and I would simply stop. Not die, just stop being.
Outwardly ascending; inwardly descending.
Oddly enough, through it all, I had a sense of what was missing. Home. Change addresses, change states, change schools, change jobs, and the question that haunted me through it all was “What am I doing here?” I was desperate for home without knowing where or what home might be. I only knew I wasn’t there.
In his poem “The Death of the Hired Man,” Robert Frost has a husband and wife debate the meaning of home. He thinks it’s “the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” She calls it “something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”
She has the better of the two. Home, it seems to me, is a thing of grace, of love without conditions attached. If you have to somehow earn entry, you’re on the porch of something other than home.
Home is my miracle. Without deserving or even knowing, I wandered up the walk, tripped over the front step and stumbled in. When I looked up, I was surrounded by seven angels (one wife, six kids), each offering me his or her unique gifts. Their loves, of course, top the list, but I also receive the gifts of who each of them is and—perhaps more importantly—who I am with each of them. I am “Dad.” And in every case, it’s a vast improvement over who I once was.
Inwardly ascending; outwardly.... Outwardly is irrelevant now. Like so many other miracle stories, this one is about a love-driven, life-giving liberation. Mine is a liberation from the inconsequential.
This miracle has a heavenly light, too, but it doesn’t shine from the sky. I see divine light in the eyes of these seven angels, each revealing--like crystals breaking the bands of sunlight into separate colors—a different quality of the sacred.
I don’t know whether the events of the miracle stories actually happened, but I’m certain the stories absolutely true. Every day, I experience the miracle of rebirth. Every day, I look into the eyes of God. Every day, I am engulfed by the miraculous: I am home.
Note: If you've enjoyed reading American Dad, you can show your appreciation by sending a donation to one of the three places listed here. I have good friends who are doing exceptionally good things at each of these places. Thanks!
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church ELCA, 5701 Raymond Rd., Madison, WI 53711
St. John's Lutheran Church, N3882 County Highway KK, Weyauwega, WI 54983-9736
Trinity Lutheran Church, 3 S 460 Curtis Avenue, Warrenville, IL 60555
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Christmas confessions of a nutjob
By Russell King
I’ll admit it: As a dad, I’m what is now popularly called a “religious nutjob.” My life as a father is inspired, informed and enriched by the life and love of Christ (for that matter, so is every other role of my life at home, at work, in politics, in writing). It’s the window frame through which I view life. My kids are so used to seeing me reading what they call the “Jesus book,” that when they want to earn my favor, they offer to buy me a new one. Christmas, then, is an especially important holiday in my life and the lives of my children.
Christmas is, however, under attack--although not in a way that really means anything.
I perceive my relationship with the one whose birthday is celebrated this month to be the most intense and most intimate I can imagine, so the celebration is precious and sacred to me. There are those among us, however, who would degrade and diminish that celebration—and that relationship—by turning it into part of our plastic pop culture, or worse, a tool for greed and a weapon for power.
John Leo, editor of US News and World Report, is one. He writes as if he’d prefer Christ’s birth be an important part of the effort—by Macy’s and Bloomingdales, among other retailers—to feed consumer greed and satisfy retailer greed. Jesus as part of a sales pitch to get us to buy ever more stuff we don’t need? The birth of Jesus is, to me, a cause for joy and prayer, but Leo would make it a tool in a den of thieves.
Seems like there’s a story where Jesus ran into this sort before.
Jerry Falwell is one. He writes about school children who were denied the opportunity to distribute to peers candy canes with bits of scripture attached. These children were disciplined by the school when they passed out their treats anyway, and Falwell blamed “the people at the American Civil Liberties Union … and other such groups (that) are practitioners of an extremist movement that would completely outlaw God, Christianity and any remnant of such from the public arena.”
Trouble is, it was the ACLU that stood up—and won—for the kids’ right to express themselves. And Falwell knew it.
As a dad, a citizen and a Christian, I object. Falwell’s lies on what he claims is our behalf make us look stupid, dishonest or both.
The Alliance Defense Fund is one. The ADF circulated a list of what it perceived to be attacks on Christmas and tried to pin the blame on the ACLU.
Turns out that the ACLU wasn’t part of anything on the list. And the ADF knew it.
Lying in the name of Christmas? It doesn’t really work.
Pat Buchanan is another one. He carries on about “hate crimes against Christianity,” but all he can point to is a few stupid and isolated incidents, like the banishment (later reversed) of a religious float from a parade in Denver and of religious songs from a high school band concert in New Jersey.
Newt Gingrich is one and may just be the most bizarre. "Are we going to abolish the word Christmas?" asked Newt Gingrich, warning that "it absolutely can happen here."
The truth is that these people, and others like them, are trying to pervert Christmas into a weapon for political purposes and secular ends. By creating phantom enemies and puffed-up threats to Christianity they hope to intimidate and marginalize anyone who objects to their efforts to impose the most conservative of Christian dogma on public policy. If you're against their views, you don't have a differing opinion, you're anti-Christian (even if you are passionately Christian).
Christmas, then, becomes a means of satisfying their lust for power.
Christmas—for this dad, mom and kids—remains as loved as ever. Celebrating Jesus’ birth, life and love have nothing to do with tasteless department store displays, parade floats or any other gaudy public exhibitions—most of which seem to me to be little more than profane attempts to cash in, one way or another, on the sacred.
The spirit of Christmas has everything to do with what is in your heart, and absolutely nothing to do with anything else. So, relax. Tune in to the message of love; tune out these merchants of hate. Enjoy the holiday, however the spirit moves you.
Note: If you've enjoyed reading American Dad, you can show your appreciation by sending a donation to one of the three places listed here. I have good friends who are doing exceptionally good things at each of these places. Thanks!
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church ELCA, 5701 Raymond Rd., Madison, WI 53711
St. John's Lutheran Church, N3882 County Highway KK, Weyauwega, WI 54983-9736
Trinity Lutheran Chruch, 3 S 460 Curtis Avenue, Warrenville, IL 60555
By Russell King
I’ll admit it: As a dad, I’m what is now popularly called a “religious nutjob.” My life as a father is inspired, informed and enriched by the life and love of Christ (for that matter, so is every other role of my life at home, at work, in politics, in writing). It’s the window frame through which I view life. My kids are so used to seeing me reading what they call the “Jesus book,” that when they want to earn my favor, they offer to buy me a new one. Christmas, then, is an especially important holiday in my life and the lives of my children.
Christmas is, however, under attack--although not in a way that really means anything.
I perceive my relationship with the one whose birthday is celebrated this month to be the most intense and most intimate I can imagine, so the celebration is precious and sacred to me. There are those among us, however, who would degrade and diminish that celebration—and that relationship—by turning it into part of our plastic pop culture, or worse, a tool for greed and a weapon for power.
John Leo, editor of US News and World Report, is one. He writes as if he’d prefer Christ’s birth be an important part of the effort—by Macy’s and Bloomingdales, among other retailers—to feed consumer greed and satisfy retailer greed. Jesus as part of a sales pitch to get us to buy ever more stuff we don’t need? The birth of Jesus is, to me, a cause for joy and prayer, but Leo would make it a tool in a den of thieves.
Seems like there’s a story where Jesus ran into this sort before.
Jerry Falwell is one. He writes about school children who were denied the opportunity to distribute to peers candy canes with bits of scripture attached. These children were disciplined by the school when they passed out their treats anyway, and Falwell blamed “the people at the American Civil Liberties Union … and other such groups (that) are practitioners of an extremist movement that would completely outlaw God, Christianity and any remnant of such from the public arena.”
Trouble is, it was the ACLU that stood up—and won—for the kids’ right to express themselves. And Falwell knew it.
As a dad, a citizen and a Christian, I object. Falwell’s lies on what he claims is our behalf make us look stupid, dishonest or both.
The Alliance Defense Fund is one. The ADF circulated a list of what it perceived to be attacks on Christmas and tried to pin the blame on the ACLU.
Turns out that the ACLU wasn’t part of anything on the list. And the ADF knew it.
Lying in the name of Christmas? It doesn’t really work.
Pat Buchanan is another one. He carries on about “hate crimes against Christianity,” but all he can point to is a few stupid and isolated incidents, like the banishment (later reversed) of a religious float from a parade in Denver and of religious songs from a high school band concert in New Jersey.
Newt Gingrich is one and may just be the most bizarre. "Are we going to abolish the word Christmas?" asked Newt Gingrich, warning that "it absolutely can happen here."
The truth is that these people, and others like them, are trying to pervert Christmas into a weapon for political purposes and secular ends. By creating phantom enemies and puffed-up threats to Christianity they hope to intimidate and marginalize anyone who objects to their efforts to impose the most conservative of Christian dogma on public policy. If you're against their views, you don't have a differing opinion, you're anti-Christian (even if you are passionately Christian).
Christmas, then, becomes a means of satisfying their lust for power.
Christmas—for this dad, mom and kids—remains as loved as ever. Celebrating Jesus’ birth, life and love have nothing to do with tasteless department store displays, parade floats or any other gaudy public exhibitions—most of which seem to me to be little more than profane attempts to cash in, one way or another, on the sacred.
The spirit of Christmas has everything to do with what is in your heart, and absolutely nothing to do with anything else. So, relax. Tune in to the message of love; tune out these merchants of hate. Enjoy the holiday, however the spirit moves you.
Note: If you've enjoyed reading American Dad, you can show your appreciation by sending a donation to one of the three places listed here. I have good friends who are doing exceptionally good things at each of these places. Thanks!
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church ELCA, 5701 Raymond Rd., Madison, WI 53711
St. John's Lutheran Church, N3882 County Highway KK, Weyauwega, WI 54983-9736
Trinity Lutheran Chruch, 3 S 460 Curtis Avenue, Warrenville, IL 60555
