Homemade Christmas Cards

We finished our Christmas card this year. Like every year we have been married, we hand-made our card. It's a challenge to come up with something relevant each year, but it always pays off in the end. I though it might be fun to revisit some of the old images of Christmas past.

1998 - inside read "Jesus"


1999 - inside read "Jesus"


2000 - inside read "Jesus"


2001


2002


2002 - We based it off this cartoon


2003


2004 (this year)

Three Lunches

I had lunch yesterday with a colleague who tongue-in-cheek commented that having a high number of “religious” people in our company might help him when the time comes. Smiling, I said with a somber tone that I doubted it, he begrudgingly agreed and we moved on.

It’s upsetting to consider how many hope their associations, esp. with the “religious” type, will play some role in their final judgment. This is quite common with husbands relying on their wife’s piety for their own justification.

Today at lunch a customer confidently referenced that I did not drink, while I was sure we had never discussed it. Similarly, at last Sunday’s lunch with our church’s guest speaker we discussed how works don’t save a person but are a reflection of salvation.

I am not going to tread on the merits and follies of alcohol, but it warmed my heart to be associated with those who abstain without having to claim it outright. Whichever side you fall on that issue, it won’t get you in or keep you out of eternity; and, neither will the fact that I don’t.

What's the problem with Nazis?

This is a silly question; we were all raised understanding the evils of the Nazi genocide. But all I am asking is why it was wrong. What is the real problem with it?

The first thing that blows my mind is that work-a-day fathers and brothers make up any regular army. How the “boy next door” could commit atrocities is a testament to the evil nature in all of mankind.

The Nazis were ruthless, a trait often lauded in the contemporary corporate world, yet it was this very nature that makes them so easy to hate; ruthlessness is very much the antithesis of empathy. The movie industry plays this card by making villains non-empathetic.

Nazis betrayed sensibilities. Like Vikings and barbarians of lore, Nazis committed the deeds we block from our minds and would never share to others that we have. Nazis killed the most innocent and forbad the respects of simple civility.

Ultimately, I believe, the most despicable aspect of the Nazi way was the companionship of evil and success. This rings as the antagonist of justice itself. How can it be that such ill could accompany a progress to world supremacy? It was an outrage to be respectably bad.

Certain things are sacred: innocence, dignity, and the respect of life made in the likeness of God. At the heart is the insult to synteresis itself – our internal barometer directing us toward our duty to the good and away from evil.

But each of our natures is laden with the sins of our fathers’ own original sin. Nazis are the modern-day poster child of what each of us fears we would be if only left to our own devices. By the grace of God none of us is left to our own devices.

Of course, blaming a defenseless social minority for global economic decisions didn’t win the Nazis any S.A.T. bonus points.