Taking Issue

"What frustrates me is the way we talk about [the social media issue of the day] from an Episcopal standpoint. Too often, it feels as though we’re taking the trendiest issue, tacking on some vaguely religious (and sometimes outright self-righteous) thoughts, and sending them on their way before turning to the next hot topic. When I read these thoughts, too often I get the feeling that collectively as a church, we’re putting the cart before the horse. We take an issue and add a dash of Jesus or the prophets, when in reality, what should come first is our enduring faith, rooted in love and action, rising up into words. The former is easy, fast, with a quick turnover. The latter is hard, slow, and a life-long commitment."

Thanks again for the folks up at Church House for allowing me to borrow their megaphone. You can get the whole piece here. 

The Facebook Christmas Trap

This is a public service reminder about Christmas time on Facebook. I'll use my own house as an example.

What people show is this:

The Vicar's Christmas Tree, 2013

Pretty good, huh? Looks cozy perfect, all ready for Santa.

But what they don't show is this:

The same room that the Vicar's Christmas tree is in. FML.

Chaos. Same room, just a different perspective. It'll be together by the time people come over. Hopefully. And if not, they're just going to have to deal with it. Sorry guys.

Because you know what? No one's perfect, even if they look perfect on Facebook, so don't sit there freaking out about how your life doesn't look like their life. I do it too. I see the life milestones (weddings, babies) the professional milestones (ordinations, in my case, or new jobs) and I sit there and get in a spin because everyone's life is moving along, but mine seems stuck in the everyday mundanity of existence. It's not really stuck, because everyone's day to day life is mundane. That's the definition of mundane, actually: it comes from the Latin, mundus, world. It's your every day world. 

So, if it helps, here's my messy living room. Don't beat yourself up. Get ready for Christmas the best way that you can, but if it falls short of your wild expectations and is instead mundane, that's okay. It's okay because Christmas is when Christians celebrate the day God came to be mundane with us, in all the messiness that mundanity entails.