(A.) Paul - via The Message:"It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on." (Galatians 5:19-21 The Message)
Ouch. (John... If you're reading, a song is in there!)
(B.) "The face in the sky. The child born in the night among beasts. The sweet breath and steamig dung of beasts. And nothing is ever the same again. Those who believe in God can never, in a way, be sure of Him again. Once they have seen Him in a stable ... If Holiness and the awful power of God was present in this least auspicious of events... then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound that holiness can't/won't be there too. This means we are never safe. ... Just where we least expect Him, He comes most fully." ~Buechner The Hungering Dark (if you haven't read Buechner, do.)
Merry Christmas!
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