December 13
Antalya, Turkey
I have been feeling weird ever since I pushed the send button for my blog (It is December … where is my calendar?) yesterday. The things I wrote still stand, but I don’t think that I portrayed it in a way that is completely true. Although there is a bit of freedom in not having a calendar, I still find great joy in ordering things. And I don’t think it is completely wrong. What I wanted to portray was what David Crowder calls Praise Habit. He describes it this way: “When good is found and we embrace it with abandon, we embrace the Giver of it. In church on Sunday. In a parent-teacher meeting. In the colors of sunset. On the other end of a tragic phone call. Every second is an opportunity for praise. There is a choosing to be made. A choosing at each moment. This is the Praise Habit. Finding God moment by revelatory moment, in the sacred and the mundance, in the valley and on the hill, in triumph and tragedy, and living praise erupting because of it. This is what we were made for.”
I realized I had a problem with this at Thanksgiving, the day that is set aside to be thankful. We sat down to eat our meal and then it happened. Matt brought around his camera and recorded what everyone was thankful for. He started at my table and I was the second one to go. I sat there for a second and told him to come back because I wasn’t ready. Truth is, do you need to be ready to be thankful? Do you need more than a couple seconds to decide what you are thakful for? I have breath in my lungs, a meal in front of me, and people that love me. That is more than a lot of people have, yet I was having trouble deciding what I wanted to say. And I had no reason to, except my own melancholy thoughts. God has shown His splendor and love and care for me repeatedly on this journey, and I couldn’t come up with something to be thankful for. I wish I could say it was because all the times He was faithful and wonderful were swirling about in my head, that I couldn’t pick just one. But it wasn’t.
It was much like where I am at today. It is our off day and I came to the food court across the street from where we are staying to have some time with my thoughts. Every other time I have been here, and there have been plenty because it has the store where we get groceries and such, it hasn’t been that crowded. But as I walked up, I could hear the massive amounts of people. And I am sitting here, very alone with my thougts, but they sound a bit like the roar of chaos in this food court. I am trying to figure out what is going on – not just in my head, but in this store. It has the feel of a festival because things are different and there are gifts and trees and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling today, that were otherwise absent two days ago. Perhaps the clown that is doing the face painting is a good indicator that there is something to celebrate.
But I am left to my own conclusions because I don’t speak the language. And the only conclusion I can come to is that this is a celebration for Christmas. And as I sit here longer and watch the kids, the parents, the presents, the clown and I wonder if this is what it would feel like if I was a foreigner in America on December 13th sitting in a food court of a major shopping store and wondering what was going on because I didn’t speak the language.
I wonder how do we make it look different? How do we make it look less like a joke and more like Christ? I am sitting here, and have no idea. But I will choose to be thankful for the good I can find. I am breathing, I love Jesus, I have people that love me, and a God that delights in me. So, until I find the answer for a different look and feel of Christmas, I shall find the good in where He has me and what He is doing. Perhaps, there in lies the answer. it isn’t this grand revolution, but a more thankful attitude for the moments, whether here or in America, that look and feel like Christmas. A Praise Habit for Christmas, if you will.
