December 14, 2007

 

Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

 

May God pour out on you His love and blessing like sunshine on a cold frosty morning. May the richness of His abiding presence lift you out of every heavy and hurtful feeling. May all the dread and doom that may be lurking beneath the surface of your senses be expelled by the hope that does not disappoint us because God’s love has been shed abroad in our hearts.

 

From all the years working with my beloved homeless and addicts, I have a real foreboding about the Christmas Season. For many this is a time of impossible dreams and unreal expectations. The AA Big Book says, “Expectations are resentments under construction.” Fill yourselves, beloved, with expectations that are the result of God’s promises to you.

 

More Christians seem to be backing away from the pagan ugliness of the “Holiday Season.” The attempt by a portion of the early church to displace the roots of Saturnalia by choosing that day as Jesus’ Birthday was an attempt to overcome evil with good. One of the huge problems has become the mixture of the clean and unclean, the pagan and the Christian. We have attempted to “sanctify” the decorated trees, the Yule logs, the extravagant giving of gifts, the (false) god character who rewards good, with new “Christian” meaning. Some are able to participate in good conscience, and others recoil at the pagan roots. Remember that whatever is not of faith is sin; and to the pure, all things are pure.

 

Whatever your family traditions, and the constraints of your conscience, I pray you have blessed and wonderful time. May you experience a Christ-filled celebration of Jesus and His love. May His birth in Bethlehem, and His birth in your heart eclipse all other distractions. “Joy to World, the Lord has come! Let earth receive her KING.”

 

Please step up the prayers for Sarah. A large hemorrhaging mass recently discovered is pushing her bladder to the side. She is meeting with a Gynecological Oncologist the 26^th.

 

I am attaching a proposed chapter for the book about “yeast.” Biblically, yeast is usually a negative, but Jesus used it as a parable of the Kingdom. I invite comments, and corrections from any who would care to send them.

 

I love you and bless you in Jesus’ name.

Frank