This the season

The snow has fallen, the Wish Tree is open, Country Christmas is on Saturday and at work we're talking about cooking turkey!

This leads me to a pet peeve of mine. Why are we letting Christmas be replaced with "Happy Holidays"? It makes absolutely no sense to me. When reading the latest stat's on Canadian spirituality over 80% of us claim to be Christian; so what's the problem? Yes, I've heard it; we don't want to offend those coming to us from other countries. My question is, what on earth has this got to do with Christmas. It's not like Christmas is a Canadian invention! Last I checked it all started in Israel! It really struck me last year when we were putting the Christmas tree up at work; my Buddhist friend says "isn't this suppose to be about Jesus?" Around the same time I got an e-mail from my Hindu friend which said "thank you for taking me to the Christian Christmas concert" I'm thinking my friends from the other countries are getting a bad wrap. As well meaning Canadians we think it's nice an polite to down play Christmas for them but then we get upset that all these people from other countries are coming over and changing our lifestyle. This attitude seems rude to me; have they even asked us to change and here we are blaming them for getting rid of Christmas! Then there is this "minor point"; isn't a Christian a follower of Christ? And didn't Jesus have power over death? If so, why on earth are we being apologetic over such a wonderful truth! As an alternative to hiding Christmas why not show real Canadian hospitality and invite a new Canadian into your home to experience a Canadian Christmas. I've heard that less than 7% of new immigrants this year will experience a Canadian Christmas. If you want to do this but you're not so sure about bringing people to your own home there is an International Christmas dinner on Dec 10th in Toronto; they're looking for host(ess) and guests so if you know of anyone spread the word.

Just one of those days

Have you ever had just one of those days? I know, many people look at me and see I have it made; yes it's true; I do; but even I have those days. Last weekend I went to a seminar and the speaker suggested that we tend to be like Watermellons; big and tough on the outside but mushy on the inside. His words to us were; become like a peach; small and soft on the outside but hard in the middle. What he meant was become smaller by making your bounderies smaller. In other words, quit getting ticked that the Prime Minister didn't call you before he made his last decision (okay, this is a little exaggerated). Become soft on the outside by allowing others to be who God made them to be; but become hard on the insdie by not allowing others to change the core of who you are. He talked about people being either door mats or hammers. They either let people walk all over them or they beat them up. He says this becomes more true the closer we are to each other because our personal boundaries start to overlap. I think I agree with him; it's probably a key reason why I'm single; I don't have to worry about the boundary overlap so much. My goal these days is to understand me well enough to know my hard core.

What's new?

Janet and I just finished a presentation on South Africa (we did the power point and she did the presentation); she did an excellent job.

I'm also hoping to go to Guatemala on a short term mission in February. (Hopefully Tiuley will be able to teach my Spanish by then!)