More on Advent: the Special Coming
I feel the excitement building in the air. Christmas is coming; and music, ads, stores, and persons are moving toward celebration big time. A person usually remembered during this season of waiting is a strange Biblical character. Like the Macchabee brothers who kept all their religious rules and died for their beliefs, John the Baptizer went into the Jerusalem desert to find truth and would later die for this faith in the coming Messiah. These foreshadows of the upcoming event can be found in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.
I happened upon this quotation from Rick Warren in his book, “The Purpose of Christmas.”
“If you’ll slow down for a few minutes, take the time…to consider the purpose of Christmas, you can receive and enjoy the best Christmas gift you’ll ever be given. Christmas is a time for celebration! Christmas is a time for salvation! Christmas is a time for reconciliation!”
Did you realize Christmas is a birthday celebration? Yes, Christmas songs, Christmas presents, Christmas parties–they all are celebrating a birthday!
And while we celebrate do we usually ignore the person whose birthday we are celebrating?
How often do we do that?
Well, it is Christmas and Happy Holidays just does not really cover it, do you think?
Very nice. Here’s my take on the simple thanksgiving that comes with Christmas.
Christmas blessings
The electronic invite landed in my inbox in early November.
“The presence of your company is requested as we celebrate Foundation Day,” it read, announcing the time, date and place for the campus event.
Coming from the hustle-and-bustle world of non-profit boards, big city universities and having covered far too many chamber of commerce events as a newspaper reporter, I assumed the gathering was a rub-elbows-with-big-time-donors kind of thing. Big yawn, right?
Wrong.
Instead, the gathering was a celebration of the foundation—quite literally—of beliefs, practices and ideals set forth by the Sisters of Mercy, the sponsoring organization for Georgian Court University.
Yes, there was food. And live music, and gifts under our president’s Christmas tree. But for a few minutes at the beginning of a busy holiday weekend, it was a special time to focus on appreciating the people around us, the intangible gifts we bring to our jobs and professional relationships, and paying homage to the Sisters of Mercy embrace us and teach us by practicing what they preach: respect, dignity, integrity, service and compassion.
Sometimes the best gifts are the simplest and most unexpected.
Here’s to hoping you find something like that under your tree this season!
G. H. Towns
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