The Shape of Things

What if your Christmas tree had no point at the top?  Where would you put the star/angel?  One solution might be to choose several of the tallest branches and put on several stars/angels.  That would obviously be a bit confusing, but not so strange in a world filled to bursting with different paths to follow.  An equivalent solution might be to have no star/angel to top the tree.  Following several guides at once would not look that different from following no guide at all.

And yet there might be some advantage to the starless tree.  Christ did not come to be just another one of the voices that influence our lives.  Jesus is the only Son of the Father, the Word of God that speaks to every human heart.  It is much easier to hear that gentle Word when we tune out the cacaphony.

Just remember that the true star is still up there (the season just started yesterday, after all!).  There is still a voice calling you and me to the place where we can meet the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Let us offer our gifts in humility to the child who came to redeem us.

Advent and a New Beginning

Wow!  Where does the time go?
It seems like an entire lifetime has passed since the last time I actually competed a post in this blog.  I started writing it as a Lenten observance almost two years ago and have worked on it from time to time since then.  When I started writing I was working at a job where I felt under-appreciated and often angry.  At a certain point I realized that my anger was keeping from being happy with even the best things in my life, particularly my Faith.  The best response I could come up with was to delve into the reasons I could consider myself the disciple of someone who could be betrayed and slaughtered and yet expect to be treated as I "deserved."  The answer I found was that I needed to court humility in a serious way.

Fast forward to today:  the third week of Advent.  I have a beautiful and loving wife who helps me feel special, a new house where I can set everything up just how I want it, a job where I do feel important and appreciated, and am expecting a daughter very soon.  I have found that it is a lot harder to stay focused on a virtue like humility when so many things are going well.

It isn't very hard to figure out why.  Humility is, among other things, the virtue that allows us to put ourselves below others, but our lives today--and particularly mine--are practically built to lead us away from this action.  I am surrounded by servants.  My car will eventually heat up to my exact temperature specifications and play whatever sounds I want to distract me from annoying silence.  My computer unlocks the vast world of information while my TV sucks all knowledge and morals from my head.  And then there is my ever-present companion and valet...my cell phone.

All of these objects exist to serve me, and in a sense I can be king of my own little universe.
What need have I for humility?

But, of course, I do have need of it, and all the more because these objects distract me from the truth.  In this time of Advent, I will take my cue from St. John the Baptist:  I will diminish, that He might increase.