Why Christmas music is important

Most people love them some Christmas music. Even the most dyed-in-the-wool grinches love happy songs about reindeer, the jolly fat man in the red suit or rocking around the Christmas tree. Silver bells, chestnuts roasting, or the girl that’s been chasing the guy all year and forgot the cranberries are all holiday favorites. There are mixed and very strong views as to WHEN Christmas music can start. Some people are chomping at the bit as soon as they get the sand off their toes from the summer. Others want nothing to do with anything Christmas until after thanksgiving. I get Christmas music year round because I have a bunch on my iPod. Alot of it is what I use as my vocal training music by David Phelps. No, not the swimmer. He is one of Bill Gaither’s tenors. If you haven’t heard of him, he’s kind of a cross between Andrea Bocelli and Michael Buble’. To anyone that knows him, you’re probably screaming at your computer saying, “NO HE DOESN”T!!” That’s the closest description I can give you. He actually defies description. He can do everything. Opera, adult contemporary, pop, you name it. He’s technically described as a counter tenor. (n. music. 1. an adult male voice or voice part higher than the tenor. 2. a singer with such a voice; a high tenor.)

He’s my hero. I want to sing like that when I grow up. Let’s face it. I’ll never get there. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. Since I get Christmas music year round, I’m not necessarily jonesing for it as soon as the wather gets cold. Christmas is my second favorite holiday. Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Ok. Yes. Jesus was not born on December 25th. We know. If you study history, and such you will find out that Jesus was likely born in march; sometime around the passover. Who cares. He was born in such a backwoods hick town that very few people acually knew about it, much less recorded the date. Just a few shepherds and some star gazing wizards. The date isn’t actually that important. What’s important is that He was born. The One to thwart Satan’s plan to be equal with God and rule the world. God promised a Messiah to save His people, and Jesus is the One. (I’m over-simplifying this to save time) Sure. Christmas, just like almost everything else has trancended its original meaning. Most people who celebrate Christmas couldn’t give a hoot as to whether Jesus was born or not. Heck. Most people doubt His existence in the first place (or so it seems).

But Christmas music to me is the songs of Jesus’ Birth. From all generations. almost doesn’t even matter who’s singing them. Frank Sinatra, Mandisa, David Bowie, Mariah Carey, almost anyone. For most Christians, it’s their favorite holiday. Memories of family times, festive parties, good times and good cheer give us all that warm fuzzy feeling. Oh yeah. then there’s the Christmas eve Candlelight service or midnight Mass all beautiful in form and spirit.

The reason I’m waxing philosophic about Christmas carols is because recently I was moved to tears because of them: their meaning and effect. Both times were in the span of about 20 minutes. I was asked to be the emergency 3rd string backup for our church’s bell choir as they went and played a Christmas program at a local assisted living facility. The choir director is also a part of an a cappella singing group that took part as well. As we played bells, Andy(the choir director) told the residents to feel free to sing or hum along if they would like. We played the familiar ones. “Angels We Have Heard On High”, “Silent Night”, and others. I didn’t play on all the songs, so when I wasn’t playing I just stood and watched the people. Only I couldn’t. It’s not that I didn’t want to, I couldn’t because I couldn’t see through my tears.

The absolute joy and peace on their faces was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. Bar none. And the music. The sweet music that I was hearing. Oh my Lord! The bells combined with their humming was some of the sweetest sound that has ever beaten my ear drums! It was almost too much to bear! I found it difficult to keep still as tears streamed down my cheeks. The beauty and majesty of Christmas was alive in that room half full of senior citizens whose younger days were probably spent not all that much differently than ours: working, raising families and the like. I would imagine their days now aren’t very exciting. But for those brief 40 minutes, they got to relive days of Christmases past or maybe dream of the day they get too meet their Savior face to face. Either way, it was an experience I pray to never forget.

 The next was when one of the guys from the group, “Cobalt Blue” sang “O Holy Night“. There was one Gentleman, relegated now to a wheelchair, Who couldn’t help singing along. He obviously has sung that song many times in the past, most likely as a solo. He was not shy. He quivered a little. His voice a little raspy, but he knew how to sing. He tried so hard to hit all the notes. and the soloist handled it with as much grace and class as anyone could hope for. He looked him in the eye with a huge smile, sang a little softer to make it a duet. The guy didn’t know the seond verse, so the soloist still sang to him. and finished the song the way the first verse ended so the guy could join him again. Sheer brilliance! I was in awe of the moment. Again.

Every year around this time I get a little, umm, well, off. I get kinda sad that I can’t give the way I feel the important people in my life desrve to receive. I know that it’s the thought that counts, but for me, I honestly want to give way more than I can. And, in the same vein, I’m can’t say that I’m really ever disappointed in a gift. Anybody that goes out of their way to give me a gift humbles me.

But this experience with the bell choir was a gift in itself. I very easily could have missed it. I was on call this past weekend. My job requires that I be on call one night a week and one weekend a month. I can switch, but right now, nobody is too keen on doing that. I didn’t get called and got to partake in a beautiful day, a beautiful program, a beautiful set of moments. Moments forged in a lifetime of Christmas memories. Moments that couldn’t have existed without the wonderful songs of the faith. I’m sure there are beautiful moments like these that don’t include any sectarian dogma. But to me, Christmas is about celebrating the gift of Jesus, the Savior of the world. I know about all of the opposition. It doesn’t make me angry, it makes me sad.

On one hand, I can understand it. I was there. “Christians are all hypocritical weak minded morons that just want my money”. I actually used to believe that. Silly. But now I see. Like John Newton. Former slave trader John Newton. Jesus got a hold of him and turned his life upside down. So much so, in fact, that he ended up writing one of the most beloved hymns in the church: “Amazing Grace“. I once was blind, but now I see. Growing up I knew all the carols. But the words never meant anything until I knew Jesus. “Joy to the world” was the first. Then “Silent night“. “Angels We Have Heard on High“. And most recently, “O Come, All Ye Faithful“. Awesome truths of God in a peaceful melodious setting. Truths that stick with us for a lifetime whether we know what they mean or not. Christmas is a time that most people agree is a time for peace, joy, family and friends, gift giving ad warm fuzzy feelings. To a lot of people “Christmas” has morphed into the secular holiday closer in relation to the pagan religions from which we get most of our symbols: the wreath, the tree, mistletoe. The candy cane was started by a Christian. It’s actually a “J” that, with its stripes, colors and flavor are all symbolic of Jesus. All the symbols and traditions are mostly interchangeable at this point secularists saying that they’re all secular and pagan. Christians all claiming that they’re Christian. The trappings of Christmas are some of both now. deal with it. EVERYONE! Christians and non Christians alike. It goes both ways. Look at the rainbow. The book of Genesis said that God hung the rainbow in the sky as a symbol of his promise that He would never again destroy the earth by water as He did with “Noah’s Flood”. The rainbow still means that to most Christians. However it also has come to mean inclusion and tolerance for all people no matter their race, creed or orientation. Some Christians are pretty wrinkled by that. TOUGH! In this world of “tolerance” (I put it quotes for a reason), we ALL need to be tolerant of each other’s beliefs and opinions. That’s gonna take 1 thing: everybody is gonna have to get some thicker skin. Just because someone’s opinions or belief system is different than yours doesn’t mean you have to get all upset and start screaming for massive social changes and quiet their voice. That goes for everyone! I would like to see a world where Christians are once again allowed to disagree with people and not be ostracized and belittled as haters and bigots. I would also like to see Christians be more accepting of people and love others. The Bible says that they will know us by our love. It happens for a little while at Christmas. Now if we could just learn to extend that kind of acceptance the rest of the year. I would hope that if you don’t give any credibility to God because of the misdeeds of his people, consider this. There are people who treat others poorly in the name of secularism, capitalism, socialism, humanism, satanism, and atheism. Do we give these things any less credibility because of poor decisions? Listen to some of the old songs of the church for the season. Listen to the words. Process them. Research them. Find out the stories of the people that wrote them. You’ll probably find that they didn’t always follow God. They wrote these songs out of love for God, and out of love for people. Jesus said these are the 2 greatest commandments. Love God, Love others. Christmas music reminds me of that. Maybe it can help you believe it too.  God Bless and Merry Christmas.

God loves atheists

I’m not normally one who’s big on bumper stickers, but I have a bumper sticker on my truck that reads: “God loves you whether you like it or not”. Some bumper stickers are meant for humor, some to sell a product, and still others tell others where your politics lie. There are also bumper stickers that can let others know your beliefs. This “Post-Christian” culture in which we live isn’t too keen on hearing your beliefs if they’re different from the politically correct norm. They say the two taboo topics to talk about are politics and religion. It seems as though the atheists that I know lash out angrily at Christian ideals, sentiments and the like. And to a certain extent I sadly agree with much of what they are angry about. People that call themselves “Christian” but very little about them is “Christ-like”. It bothers me too when someone that claims to be a follower of Christ says something hateful, or condemning, or judgemental. We who claim to want to be more and more like Jesus need to remember that people are watching. It brings me pain when I hear about a pastor accused of some sort of indiscretion. I cringe when a good Christian friend says something harsh.Yes we have to answer to God and if we are sincere in our confession to Him, He will forgive us. However. the watching world is not so forgiving. Screw up just 1 time, and you will have a hard time getting someone to hear your good news and take it seriously. The more public your mistake, the more scorn and ridicule gets heaped on you…and God. Unfortunately no matter how hard we try, we are all guilty of being human. Some – like me – are more faulty than others.

Now, I’m not trying to heap a bunch of guilt on anyone. But if we really know Jesus as Savior, we should be moving toward a place where we want to see everyone come to faith in Christ. We need to have a heart for the lost. We should honestly want to see everyone accept Jesus as Savior. We who are”saved” were once lost and someone told us of the grace of God even though someone somewhere made up their mind that we didn’t deserve it. Believe me: if we met enough people that knew everything about us somebody somewhere would find enough fault with us to say that we don’t belong in the Kingdom of God. We Christians are an odd sort. We say that ideally, yes, everyone should accept Jesus as Savior and get to go to heaven. But after we’ve been saved for a while, we sort of forget the joy of the Lord. We pretty much know that we’re going to heaven. We have our “Eternal Fire Insurance” as it were, and to hell (quite literally) with everyone else. That’s not exactly fair, now is it? I know this isn’t everyone’s view, but most people (Christian or not) are very quick to condemn the most vile of offenders and say that they should rot in hell for what they’ve done. I’m gonna throw a few scenarios out here and tell me that I’m wrong.

In prison, Michael vick gave is life to Christ and repented of his wrongdoing. He served his time, got connected with good people and has been a model citizen since. However there are good, kind hearted people I know begin spewing vile and filth at the mere mention of his name. Yes: Michael Vick did some unconscionable and despicable things. Yes: His sentence may have been a little (or a lot) short. Mind you, I am by no means condoning any of the heinous things that he did. I cheered with everyone else when he went to prison. Justice was served! The spoiled rich kid got what he deserved. But isn’t that the way our system works? you do wrong, you get caught, you go to trial, you get sentenced, you do your time, if you’re still alive, you get out. start over. Maybe some probation. But, in a lot of people’s minds, Vick should still be rotting in jail or even should have gotten the death penalty (even though they don’t normally believe in the death penalty). Fair?

Jeffrey Dahmer also reportedly gave his life to Christ while in prison and became a model citizen. He was never going to get out of prison, but he began to work in the prison as a janitor. He was assauled by some other inmates and died from his injuries. Most people I know were pleased with that.

These are two extreme examples to be sure, but I bring them up to make my point. Who decides who should get to go to heaven? Who decides who should go to hell? The idea that these places exist is a debate for another day. For this exercise, we will just figure on their existence.

The answer may surprise you. You do. You decide your own fate. Jesus made His point pretty clearly: If you follow Jesus, truly follow Jesus, you need not worry about your fate. If you choose to not follow Jesus, you also have chosen your eternal home. You do not, however, get to choose the fate of others. Romans 3:23 says that “ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God“. Not some, not everybody but you, ALL. God’s standard is perfection. I am certainly not perfect. I’m pretty sure that if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll see that you’re not perfect either. You make mistakes, you say and do things that you may not be proud of. And you’ve probably broken all 10 commandments. Ok, maybe you haven’t actually murdered someone. Jesus said that if you’ve hated someone you’ve murdered. Sound harsh? Can be.

I don’t know where you are in your relationship with God. You may be tight. You may be just acquaintances, or you may have set yourself up as a bitter enemy. You may not even think there’s anyone to have a relationship with. That’s fine. Just remember this: God loves you whether you like it or not. You may ask, “How do you know?”

If you’re a parent, you love your kids. In a manner of speaking you “created ” them. You feed them and help them learn as they grow. You set boundaries and rules because you love them and you want what’s best for them. When they break the rules or go outside the boundaries, there are consequences ( I hope ). We are all God’s children He created us all individually and with a purpose. (grab a Bible and read Psalm 139.) Verses  19 through 22 sound confusing, and that’s ok. I’ll cover that another time. God created you with a specific combination of gifts and talents that  no one has ever had or ever will have. You are the only you that there will ever be. I like that thought. It tells me that there is at least someone that loves me and cares for me, even when it feels like no one else does. I don’t know. I just don’t understand getting comfort from the idea that we are all the product of some cosmic accident. We’re here just purely by chance. The more research that’s done, the more intricate that they’re finding life to be. How each cell is a miniature factory that has to work in a very specific way or it will cease function. Honestly I have a hard time believing that all of this evolved like we’re taught. There’s just too much that doesn’t make sense.

I work on the premise that the Bible is true. God created everything. Whether it’s a literal 6 days or not, I don’t know. I do know that there is evidence that the earth isn’t billions of years old. I also know that God created each one of us with a specific purpose in mind. Like a parent, God created us and loves us. But the thing that separates God from our genetic parents is that he gives us a choice. The choice to follow Him or not. He allows us to try to make it on our own. To live apart from Him and see how we do. Some people like that choice. Some people thrive in this world without Him. They accumulate lots of stuff, have lots of money, power, friends, and such. But if you were to take all of that stuff away, would they still be “happy” if they’re REALLY happy in the first place. I’ve never had any large amount of stuff, and I’m at this point pretty content. My life is currently in upheaval and uncertainty, but I’ve also never been more content. I’ve learned in the last few years that God really is better than stuff, and that He is as faithful as can be imagined. The nuts and bolts of the last 3 years will be the subject of a future blog when the time is right. All I know is, that God not only exists, but is very concerned with even the smallest details of our lives. He Made each one of us and knows every detail about you. He cares. I promise He does. I don’t know why this makes some people angry. But the facts are the facts. If you don’t want to acknowledge it, that doesn’t change it. God really does love you, whether you like it or not. Blessings, grace and peace to you.

Welcome to my blog.

Well. Somehow I landed myself a blog. I’m not exactly sure why, bit seems as though the how is pretty self-explanatory. I’m not that smart. I was invited to join another blog that I was invited to join as part of a discussion group. When I went to the page to join the discussion, I mistakenly signed up for my own blog. Since I keep getting emails from the nice WordPress people, and since I seem to never have a shortage of opinions about everything, I thought to myself, “self…(I know, oldest joke blah blah blah) why don’t you start putting some of these things out there (instead of letting them clog up your head) and see what happens!”

So without further rambling, I do believe that an introduction would be a nice place to start.

I am a Christian. There. I said it. I believe that not only that a God exists, but a personal and loving Creator that is omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (everywhere), and omnipotent (all powerful). I wasn’t always. I grew up in a denomination that stressed performance. once I hit a certain age I started looking around at the structure and tenets of said denomination, and some things just didn’t quite make sense to me. So after looking around at how everyone else did “church” I decided in my infinite wisdom that since no one could agree on any of this “God-stuff” that it was all just a bunch of hooey designed to bilk money from weak minded fools. 

So I started living life the way I wanted. If there’s no God, then there’s no heaven. If there’s no heaven, there’s no gates. No gatekeeper, no rules, no one to whom I needed to stand accountable. If it feels good, do it. That was ok, for a while. But for some reason, I could never shake this nagging feeling of being unsatisfied.  The parties always ended, the booze always dried up, most of the friends and/or relationships I had with people ended for one reason or another. Which kept me wanting for more. I didn’t know what the answer was, so the search got more and more intense. Usually that meant getting to the bottom of another bottle. As you can imagine that never usually ended up well. It also didn’t help finding an answer. It almost always created a new one.

After a while I got to the point where all this, we’ll call it “me-ism” began to wear on everyone around me except one friend. (well, two, but we’ll get into that later.) He had started going to church with his wife. They had both grown up in church and learned what it was like to have church as a vital part of life. I resisted for a while, insisting that the church thing was NOT for me. He was persistent and gentle, giving me space and time to “make up my own mind”.  Eventually I could no longer find anymore excuses or rationalize my wanting to not go. I guess part of me wanted to just go and have the people look down their nose at me, not welcome me, I’ll be right about the judgemental hypocrites and go home and never darken their door again. I didn’t really know any of that from experience, just got it from what other people had told me.

When I did finally relent and go I was shocked and amazed at how wrong I was. The people I met were warm, friendly, and very welcoming. Nearly everyone seemed genuinely concerned that I enjoyed my time there. There were a few curmudgenly types that seemed to not want me back, but as I came to find out those people were always grumpy. Kind hearted, but grumpy. These people changed my mind and seemed so sincere that I felt that I needed to go back. I began to think that this “God fellow” may actually be real. I began going to Sunday School and learning about God and that He has a plan for each one of us. Now, lest anyone accuse me of falling for their “brainwashing” let me state clearly and emphatically that my cynicism would override ANY brainwashing system. If stuff don’t make sense to me, there’s usually a reason for it. The transformation from cynical agnostic to believer had begun. It took some time, but I did finally get to a place where I finally decide that I had enough information to begin following God. I don’t have all the answers. There are still things that go on that don’t make sense. But I have also come to put my faith in a God that loves us. He wants nothing more than each of us to love him back. It seems to be too fantastic to some. Their reasons I’m sure are valid. My job is not to change minds. My job is to let you know my experience and maybe you’ll change your own mind if you don’t already believe. Too many people who don’t believe just want to “win the argument”. Most don’t want to be honest enough with themselves to think that there may something better; Someone looking out for them. Maybe they don’t want to change. Maybe they don’t want anyone telling them how to live their life. Been there. Done that. Bought the hat and t-shirt.

The point of this blog will to be to share my experience of God, His love and faithfulness to me. I may even share stories of other people. I will be more than happy to answer questions, or anything like that. However, I will not answer anyone that just throws out thinly veiled versions of the “nuh-uh” defense. Thanks for reading and tell a friend!