What it took me 5 decades to learn

© 2015 Christy K Robinson

I've always been thankful. When I receive a gift, I say "thank you" to the giver, or write a thank-you note before I use the item or spend the money. It's just good manners, as I was taught from infancy. I guess I thought that was enough: acknowledging the gift and telling the giver I liked it and they were very kind to give it. Not any more.

Gratitude is something deeper, I believe. The word comes from the Latin "gratus" or "gratia." We often use the word "grace" in faith settings, and it's usually defined as undeserved favor, or even as extreme as showing mercy to a known enemy. Gratitude is the condition of being thankful for a gift.

If the money or thing was earned, there's no grace about it--it's payment. But gratitude acknowledges that the giver owned something of value and relinquished it forever to the recipient with no expectation of repayment or reciprocation.

There's also a providential time element to consider. When I've been down to the wire on figuring how to get by in a financial situation (had to replace the tires on my car as they crumbled in the Arizona climate, website renewal came up, the air conditioning bill was $225, and my teaching income was next to nothing), I received gifts in the snail mail. Sometimes they come in the form of a freelance job (that I work for), sometimes as a gift card marked "With love from Jesus," sometimes as a "just because" gift, and sometimes a random stranger decides he likes the research articles on my history blog. But there's no accident that they came at exactly the right time. The givers may or may not recognize the whisper of God in their minds. But I do. That's another difference between feeling thankful and being grateful. I know the source of the generosity.

Something I've learned, again and again, but perhaps in a deeper way recently, is that gratitude is a lifeline out of despair. It doesn't make a lot of sense to be grateful for adverse circumstances, but I've found that being grateful that I'm beloved of God, and that I have the respect and love of friends, lifts me up from the pit where the Adversary flung me.

Rather than a rational explanation, the miraculous answer is that when I set my eyes on God, instead of my miserable circumstances, he has the opportunity to remind me from whence my blessings flow--and then sets them in motion. It's not that I deserve the blessing by my actions, but that he loves me and is liberal with his gifts.

Dr. Wayne Dyer, educator and philosopher, passed away in late 2015. His daughter Serena Dyer Pisoni wrote of a sensation of her father's presence in her car when she was feeling burdened by stress, and the lesson she took from it:

"I don't have to wait for ... the stress and the turmoil to go away in order to feel peace. In fact, it's just the opposite. I have to feel peace inside in order to get ... the turmoil to go away. I cannot control what's going on outside of me. But I can control how I react to it. I can choose peace at any time despite what is happening around me."

As mentioned in the video "Just Be Held," if my eyes are on the storm, I'm not seeing the one who's saying "Peace, be still."

So being thankful, nay, being grateful right down to my core, is what I hope to be, and hold in my heart in increasing measure, in the new year ahead.

Saint Nicholas on Santa's Naughty List!

From a Facebook post by minister Benjamin L. Corey: 

Today (December 6) is the Feast of St. Nicholas-- yes, the original jolly fellow himself.

He's remembered for giving gifts to children, trying to save girls from human trafficking, advocating for people on death row, and perhaps most of all: punching heretics in the face.

At the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, The man who would become "Santa" lost his cool when Arius argued that Jesus was not co-eternal and con-substantial with the Father, and punched Arius in the face for being a heretic. Some legends have it that a man named Eusebius responded by urinating on Nicholas' robe, but the position of Nicholas carried the day anyway.

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas! Heretics beware.

Who knew St. Nicholas was a Klingon? 

********************* 

Comments from his readers: 

Adam Tate: St. Nicholas, Archbishop of Myra was present at the Council of Nicea but not on the list. So he was probably in a gallery around the Patriarchs involved. Or...its possible the slap was just days or even hours prior to the council sessions.

Arius was a deacon at the Church of Alexandria who defied the teaching on the nature of Christ. He had beef with the Bishop of Alexandria's teaching on the nature and substance of God. Essentially he claimed there was a time when the Son was not.

St Nicholas was known for his humility and poverty. He came from well to do parents who left an inheritance to him. Of which he gave away. He served time in prison for preaching the gospel. Just prior to Constantine taking the throne. He was an old man, while Arius was a young man. Probably young enough to be Father Nicholas' grand son. He slapped the young lad no different than we would scold a teenage son for his ignorance and defiance of their elders.

Michael Jay: Remember the result of this was he was removed from the council, stripped of his bishop's robes, and locked up until the council was over. His position was restored -- but, Nicholas removed himself from the council by his bad behavior.

Yes, he was an old man, but he also slapped a priest who was not in his Diocese, and who was bluntly the main reason the council was called in the first place. I imagine a lot of people wanted to slap him, but Athanatius (also a priest, same Diocese) managed to use his words; and that was what was necessary.

Dog in a Manger

© Christy K. Robinson

The phrase, “dog in a manger” comes from an ancient Greek fable about a dog lying in the food trough, growling and warning off the cattle who would feed on the grain, though the dog had no use for it. It refers to a person who can’t or won’t use something himself, but spitefully withholds it from someone else.

“I don’t want it, and you can’t have it.” The ungodly actions and attitudes of professed Christians can be a deterrent to the sharing of the gospel. Their hypocrisy makes all of us look bad, and deters others from making their own examination of the claims of Jesus Christ. Example: While courting the votes of the far-right conservative Christians, often called Evangelicals, Donald Trump kissed up to the conservative political action committees, to fundamentalist groups and institutions like Liberty University, Values Voters, Focus on the Family, the American Family Association, and others. He said he was pro-life, though it was only a position held for the duration of the election season, and he claimed to be born again--though day after day after day, there were new words of hate and filth and lies. Surely you remember the jeering about evangelical Christians. And the divide between actual evangelical Christians and the Republican evangelicals who can't separate their religion and their party.

Here’s an unexpected one: preachers, teachers, and authors who use complicated theological concepts, “isms,” and multi-syllabic labels to explain what God has made clear and easily understood by children and Down Syndrome people: God loves us, and has moved heaven and earth because he wants to save us.   

Jesus had harsh words for religious leaders and teachers who have made following God’s lead unappealing, too harsh, too difficult to understand, legalistic, judgmental, and too full of restrictions. “Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.” Matt. 23:13

Dog in a manger!

The apostle Paul wrote about those people. “But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.”  Romans 1:18-23

Jesus could have come as a king, president, senator, priest, minister, university professor, Nobel scientist, or anything else but the baby in a blue-collar laborer’s family, born in a cave that sheltered travelers’ beasts of burden. And maybe even their shepherd dogs or guard dogs.

But no. He came as a dependent newborn, as harmless as a kitten. Babies are inoffensive, and they have no history for us to blame or resent. They represent hope and potential, growth and a future. This baby came to GIVE.

If there was a dog in the manger of Bethlehem, perhaps it looked something like this: a homeless dog who just needed a safe place with no kicks and blows and curses, a soft place to rest from the strain of living on garbage in harsh weather. A dog who would come in from the cold for sanctuary.

Are you that dog in a manger? Are you looking for the basic simplicity of home, and love, rest, security, and sanctuary?

Jesus says, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matt. 11:28-30

In Criciuma, Brazil, a church set up an outdoor crèche,
with images of Joseph and Mary, angels, shepherds,
and baby Jesus lying in the straw-filled manger.
On the night of December 16, 2008, a young stray dog found her way there
and snuggled up with Jesus for the night.

Photo by Kiko Della Giustina. The dog was adopted.