Happy New Year, Charlie Brown - advice and resolutions

"That's one thing you should never do. 

Never sniff in someone's root beer."

I've watched Happy New Year, Charlie Brown! twice with my boys in the last two days. As you might expect, the resolutions, quips, and advice were great! I'll start with my favorite. What is your favorite resolution, line, or bit of advice?



Peppermint Patty [PP]: Have you made any New Year's resolutions, Chuck?
Charlie Brown [CB]: Yes. You know how I always dread the whole year? Well, this time I'm only going to dread one day at a time.

...

PP: ...What do you think, Chuck, would be good rules for living in the New Year?
CB: Keep the ball low, don't leave your crayons in the sun, use dental floss every day, don't spill the shoe polish, always knock before entering, don't let the ants get in the sugar, never volunteer to be a program chairman, always get your first serve in, and feed your dog when he's hungry.
PP: Will those rules give me a better life, Chuck?
CB: The better life, and a fat dog.

...

CB: I've decided next year, I'm going to be a "changed person."
Lucy van Pelt: Oh, be serious, Charlie Brown.
CB: No, I mean it. I'm going to be strong and firm.
Lucy: Forget it, Charlie Brown. You'll always be wishy-washy.
CB: Why can't I change just a little bit? I've got it! I'll be wishy one day, washy the next.

...

Lucy: Your stupid beagle sniffed in my root beer! Look at that! I'll bet it's full of dog germs! Where are my binoculars? ...You see, it's filled with dog germs!
CB: That's one thing you should never do. Never sniff in someone's root beer.

...

Linus van Pelt: How are you doing with War and Peace, Charlie Brown?
CB: I've just finished reading the dust jacket.
Linus: Many is the book report that has been written by just reading the dust jacket.

...

Linus: When Leo Tolstoy was writing War and Peace, his wife, Sonya, copied it for him seven times, and she did it by candlelight, and with a dip pen...after their child had been put to bed, and the servants had gone to their garrets, and it was quiet in the house. Just think, Charlie Brown: she wrote the book seven times with a dip pen, and you're telling me you can't even read it once?

...

Lucy: There's going to be a great New Year's party!
CB: ...But I've got this book report to do.
Lucy: I'm enrolling us in a dance class. A New Year's party is not a party without lots of dancing.

Joy in Manger Square, Bethlehem

Movies – TV specials – every year they come up with a new way to make it seem like Christmas is in trouble. What if Santa can’t get through the storm or crashes his sleigh? What if he falls off the roof top and Tim Allen isn’t there to take over? What if Ebeneezer Scrooge or all the children of New York lose the Christmas spirit?

A dozen years ago, in 2002, Christmas almost went by in the actual city of Bethlehem uncelebrated. There had been a major Israeli raid, The Church of the Nativity was occupied by snipers. And for half that year, the city was under a strict evening curfew.

Manger Square was undecorated, no glistening lights, no bells or holly…and very few pilgrims. There were many open inns, but almost no tourists to fill them.  It was as if Dr. Seuss’ Grinch had driven his sleigh into Bethlehem, into the heart and the very starting place of Christmas, and had taken everything, leaving it bare. Except that Christmas happened again anyway.

Now, today in the Holy Land, it is a completely different scene. The new Mayor of Bethlehem is named Vera Baboun. She is first woman elected to that position, an Arab Christian who has been encouraging Christians and businesses to stay in Bethlehem.

She is determined to make sure that Christmas is celebrated in Manger Square the whole month of December. In fact, it’s a bit over the top with dancing Santas and fireworks…filled with music and trumpets, and their “jing tinglers, their flu floopers, and tar tinkers.” You might think that the Mayor of Bethlehem has saved Christmas, or some think she’s lost it by going over the top with all the noise and hoopla.

Except that, right now, it is about 5:30 [9:30] AM on Christmas morning in Bethlehem, and people there are learning the same lesson that God has been trying to teach us for over 2000 years ago. The lesson is simple: nobody—no Grinches, no Scrooges, no soldiers, no lack of decoration, or packages, no crowded squares or empty inns, nor power hungry King Herods, or dancing Santas—nothing and no one stops Christmas from happening. And no one saves Christmas. …Christmas saved us!

Christmas in its most basic form was and is the will of God in the flesh.  And you cannot stop what God wills. God said, “Let there be light!”  And then there were suns and stars, reflections and rainbows.  It may have happened in an instant, or over billions of years; it’s all the same to God.  He wills it; …it happens.

God said, “Let there be salvation!”  And there was Jesus Christ.  God’s will, God’s love and joy came to us in the flesh. 

So, you cannot stop Christmas.  Christmas is Christ! But you can let Christmas get crowded out of your own heart.  That can happen if we  ignore all that God has given, or refuse to rejoice, or let our hearts get too cramped.

One of my favorite writers is John Ortberg.  In his book, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, he wrote,

“The Bible puts joy in the nonoptional category.  Joy is a command.  Joylessness is a serious sin, one that religious people are particularly prone to indulge in.  It may be the sin most readily tolerated by the church… How much damage have joyless Christians done to the cause of Christ?”

The joy that you and I are called to have is not empty-headed.  We are not called to walk around with ding-a-ling smiles when we are faced with all the horrible stuff that happens around us, but an over-riding peace and an underlying joy in us that realizes that no one has the last word…except God.  God has and will always have the last word; and his Word from the beginning of creation has always been “Life.”  “Rise up!”  “Live again!”  “Live forever!”  “Life.”

Because of that Word of Joy, made flesh in Jesus Christ, our biggest responsibility as a church, our greatest call as Christians could be summed up in that Biblical commandment to “Rejoice!” And this follows: to help others rejoice with us, as we all discover and rejoice in the God who loves us to death and back again.

That is how we make room for Christmas. That’s how Christmas is reborn every year. Christmas has come.  Christmas is here.  Right here.  His name is Jesus Christ.  Let his love fill you with hope for those around you. Let it fill you with expectation each year and for all eternity.

I’ll say it one last time: Christmas cannot be lost, and Christmas never needs to be saved! Christmas saves us! Joy to the world!

After Scrooge Put on His Running Sneakers...

Hmmm. I'm usually more careful, but I'll just stream these thoughts that occurred to me while last-minute shopping yesterday and running this morning. (That's not exactly streaming, I suppose, but probably the closest you'll ever get from me!)

I'll be honest. I'm not enjoying this holiday and Christmas season as much as I have in years past. Hopefully, this is as close to the old Ebeneezer Scrooge as I'll ever be. As I was looking for a few extra "Santa" gifts for the boys, I was still muttering under my breath. Why? Don't I enjoy this challenge?

Well, it dawned on me. I have normally had a "significant other" to shop for, and the boys' stockings to fill. Whether easy, or difficult, practical, romantic, or comfortable, I enjoy looking for gifts. It's not actually what I find, not the gift itself, but the search that seems important to me. Even if I get annoyed or cross at not knowing or finding the "right" gift, it is a challenge that I enjoy, much like I enjoy a long run. Each year before, I may have "protested too much" over the difficulty and hardship of hanging the lights, decorating cookies, finding the gifts, and filling the stockings.

I still get to do most of it this year, whether alone or with the boys. However, the missing pieces have eaten at me. Here's how weird it got. Last night, I even chose one of my Facebook friends, and decided to explore the question: "If I were shopping for her, what would I get?" This "friend" was not especially close, but still, I used what little I knew and started looking around the web, eventually finding a gift that I thought would be quirky like me, but something she'd get a kick out of and enjoy. I went so far as to fill out the order form, billing, shipping, even my card number.

All I had to do was hit "complete order." However, receiving an anonymous gift like that from some "Secret Santa" may be cool for a few. For others, it would creepy. Instead--with a sigh--I hit the little "x" in the right corner to close the window. Still, I felt a little better. I got to do my search.

Then, this morning I went for my run, and I began to feel lighter. I remembered: this season isn't in the gifts or even in the giving, as so many say. All this is meant to point to the real center. It is a birthday party. It was a birthday party with a gift given to the world expressing an undying promise. Love: there is a force of Life and Love that defies darkness, or any periods of depression and grief. ...And I was reminded of one of my favorite Christmas writings of Charles Dickens. This is one that has come to mean more to me each year.

Merry Christmas, my friends. You are all welcome around my Christmas fire!

An excerpt from "What Christmas Is as We Grow Older" by Charles Dickens:

     ...Welcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent fancy, to your shelter underneath the holly! We know you, and have not outlived you yet. Welcome, old projects and old loves, however fleeting, to your nooks among the steadier lights that burn around us. Welcome, all that was ever real to our hearts; and for the earnestness that made you real, thanks to Heaven! Do we build no Christmas castles in the clouds now? Let our thoughts, fluttering like butterflies among these flowers of children, bear witness! Before this boy, there stretches out a Future, brighter than we ever looked on in our old romantic time, but bright with honour and with truth. 

     ...Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open- hearted! In yonder shadow, do we see obtruding furtively upon the blaze, an enemy's face? By Christmas Day we do forgive him! If the injury he has done us may admit of such companionship, let him come here and take his place. If otherwise, unhappily, let him go hence, assured that we will never injure nor accuse him. On this day we shut out Nothing!

     "Pause," says a low voice. "Nothing? Think!"

     "On Christmas Day, we will shut out from our fireside, Nothing."

     "Not the shadow of a vast City where the withered leaves are lying deep?" the voice replies. "Not the shadow that darkens the whole globe? Not the shadow of the City of the Dead?"

     Not even that. Of all days in the year, we will turn our faces towards that City upon Christmas Day, and from its silent hosts bring those we loved, among us. City of the Dead, in the blessed name wherein we are gathered together at this time, and in the Presence that is here among us according to the promise, we will receive, and not dismiss, thy people who are dear to us!

Selene

Selene
     Tonight you glow
          in full radiance
     I see your dance
          in the gleam
               of a young woman's eye

Diane
     Your wildness
          fills this night
          and fires a renewed pulse
          in me

Muses
     Your dance and music and poems
     Overwhelm my heart and
     Fill my head but...

My thick tongue
      Poor art and
      Awkward gestures
           are silenced as
       Her hand folds gently
           into mine

GSKaurin (college days)

Life Fell

Life fell from the sky last night
One flake nestled into my open palm
I barely noticed her beauty
Before she melted from sight


(GSKaurin, Summer 1991; chaplaincy in the ICU)

Grandpa Bob

He lifted the small pup --
          tail wagging,
          tongue licking
     -- to his lap;

Cooed in the floppy ear,
          "silly thing,
          hush now,"
     calming words.

His wife's voice chirped
          in the background
          to the company.
     He smiled secrets
          into the soft, brown eyes
               now settled in his lap.

After gazing silently
          around the room
          at children, grandchildren,
          spouse, and snoozing pug,
      he lowered his head,
                    closed his eyes,
           hand resting on soft fur.

His breath eased,
           and gently drifted away.

(by GSKaurin; Robert E. Kaurin: b. 1/06/11, d. 1/28/89)

No One, But Many