Will you be living in Fear or Living in Hope?

Some people send me Fwd. Emails mostly of American origin. I usually delete these before reading them.  I have always regretted opening them, not for their often extreme political views but for their scaremongering attitudes to anything not sanitised as middle class religious right.

Why do we do Christmas again?

I have been considering the reason for Christmas again. It seems I do it every year. Of course I discover something new and wonderful every time. This year has been kind to me and I am feeling grateful for what Jesus accomplished for us. You may wonder what this has to do with the birth of Jesus.

The Smells of Christmas

I often go online to look at stuff at a huge site run by Orthodox Jews in New York. It seems that every second time I pull up their site they have a large notice saying they are closed for business today due to this or that Jewish feast day or holiday. Do those guys ever work? I’m jealous maybe. They seem to be having too much fun.

How far from the truth have we gone?

The Church in NZ is in a state of famine unprecedented in our time but maybe not unusual in history. People are starving for the love and reality only Jesus can provide though they are surrounded by Christian stuff everywhere.

By our “Christian” traditions we have walled in the truth. We have stylised our beliefs to accommodate and be relevant to our society and culture. We have made it so hard to see Jesus by interposing a distorted image. We have offered Jesus in various flavours and the menu is confusing. Unless we move these obstacles from the believers first, we will seem as though we do not know who we are talking about. Indeed it is hard to talk about Jesus when we are seen as presenting a narrow view from our own religious experience.