Christopher's Meanderings

This is the second Sunday of Advent. The second week of Advent may focus on peace, preparation, and anticipation in some traditions. I appreciate Advent for several reasons, not least of which is the focus on Christ's return. This morning we read from Luke 2:22-40, focusing on Mary, Joseph, Simeon, and Anna. I came away unable to shake the sense of immediacy and urgency the prophetic voices of Anna and Simeon would have had as they met the infant Christ. I regularly lose my focus, and found myself imagining the type of focus they would have had to maintain in readiness for this day. How would the mundane have worked out in between? The reality I came back to in reflecting on these two people of God was sin. It may sound like a strange place to land, but I have been reading through the minor prophets and Isaiah for the last couple of months. It's difficult, nay impossible, to miss the reality of sin as you navigate this portion of the Bible. What I have been struggling with

In a few hours we will be officially starting the process of travel to see family for Thanksgiving. As a kid, I never completely got why the holiday was so important to my parents. Now, I start to see it more as a time to be with family without pretense or a bunch of other distractions. One thing is for sure, time just keeps going by faster than I feel like I can keep track of it. So, I wanted to take a chance to think about what it means to be thankful. I know this may be trite because so many people are tackling the topic of thankfulness in one way or another right now, but I think it still bears reflection. At least for me, this an area I can still improve. Thankfulness by its nature means we realize the importance of what we have in some sense. It is a reflection which shows gratitude toward someone or something for what is possessed. The thing possessed can be time with family, food, a job, or any other number of things. But what does it mean to express gratitude? Is merel

No one would argue that we don't live in a charged political environment in the United States. It seems like every week there is a new headline further highlighting the divides in this country. I am tired. Surely, I am not the only one. It seems like we are often tired as a country. Maybe I am just getting older and don't have the energy or enthusiasm I had ten years ago. There are so many different things we could focus on, but what drew me to finally write on this blog again is the difference between following Christ and following an ethical system. Moralistic therapeutic deism is a term from the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers  by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. In general, the teenagers who believed in this sort of worldview didn't hold to any particular set of beliefs from a distinctive faith.  Instead they believed in a god who is separate from the world and can aid them in a psychological sense. Additiona