.
This is an overgeneralization to be sure, but I’ve sometimes noted the tendency of the conservative Christian to get the letter right but not the spirit; and the liberal to get the spirit right but not the letter. (cf. Luke 9:55 versus Rom 2:14)

Like the man said: the church is built up “by that which EVERY joint supplies” (Eph 4:16).

Request noted. I'll go look for the camera. ...clip art is my needlepointing friend.

I want pictures of those dish towels!!

Lee, I don't feel obligated to post here. It's a delight to interact with you all. I've been missing out lately. However, I have managed to needlepoint (no, I'm not typically a crafty person - I'm a *reader*) three wise men following the star on a dish towel for my mom. The kids and I are working together on these dish towels for family; a penguin skiing, Santa zipping along on his sleigh, and a couple of ornaments on a branch are calling for our attention at the moment. Fairies, race cars and Legos vied for places on the dish towels. *sigh* On the other hand, G.K. Chesterton redeemed fairy tale reading that my daughter loves.

And then there was the Cookie Press cookies ... which, along with handling a needle, led to a bit of tendinitis in my wrist, a visit to the doctor and the purchase of a wrist splint. Who knew that a home-made Christmas could lead to a bodily injury? We did manage to ski a few times down "College" - a ridge run - on Bald Mountain and "Ridge" run opened recently. Is that part of what it looks like to follow Jesus on the ridge-top during Christmas? (got it back on topic...?)

Gina, you mean to say I've stolen the element of surprise from one of your posts? I *HATE* it when I do that! :-(

But at least I can look forward to prose far better than i could ever formulate.

Oh, nicely done, Jason. :-)

Even if the car trips are going off in dangerous directions, Gina.

Also, I believe the definitive discussion of the origin of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" can be found here, starting at about 00:54:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9jLExfjWJs

(This is a radio series that some friends of mine got me into. If you like British humor, do yourself a favor and download all the episodes from iTunes or Audible.com. They're lots of fun, and particularly nice to have on car trips.)

My dad likes both the Albert Finney and the George C Scott Scrooge, Lee. He watches them every Christmas season and loves the dialogue, though sometimes he jokes that Scrooge sounds like he has a point.

Lee, somehow you've managed to psychically predict the content of an upcoming blog post of mine. How DO you do that? :-)

To put the YOD at rest early, I'll say that while an advantage of liberal Christianity is its greater sympathy for those who suffer, a more powerful advantage of conservative Christianity is its greater acknowledgement that God in His sovereignty does indeed work all things for good - at least, eventually.

Ellen, it is my great delight to see you back among us, but at the same time I would hope you feel no obligation. My references to you are in the same vein as those to Steve (SBK), who was a frequent commenter here until his first child arrived (whereupon he also rightly rearranged his priorities), to Ben W who I miss terribly much (Go Steelers!! Sigh.), and to labrialum and Brian and all the others, friends and frienemies alike, who have come and gone over the years. My references are to a dear friend and fellow traveler on the path to Glory. May they be not a goad to you, but a comfort.

My wife and daughters all suffer from digestive issues (so I can sympathize with your plight), yet, paradoxically, all of them love sushi. I'm reminded of a story I distinctly remember from my molecular biology class, about a Japanese factory worker who was going to be fired for getting drunk during his lunchbreak. The poor fellow swore he was not drinking during the day, and indeed, some corporate officers accompanied him and he had nothing to drink, yet was intoxicated shortly after the meal. It turned out that he had a bacterial parasite, probably a result of eating sushi, and the parasite's waste product was straight grain alcohol, which was going straight into its host's bloodstream. A shot of antibiotics into the right location cured the problem.

My prayer, both a liberal *and* a conservative prayer, is that such a simple solution can be found for you. A quick googling of "eosinophilia" suggests this can be a very serious illness indeed. Or, rather, that treatments can be dangerous. But our God is mighty, and you are deeply loved by those who weep along with you.

Regarding your needlepoint, dear lady, I'll say that those of us with children know all too well about the difficulties of remaining logically consistent. I'm surprised that more of the little buggers don't grow up to be attorneys.

(Ooh, Chuck Colson was an attorney, and many of his staff either were or are. I'll try for a gold medal in the 40 Meter Backpedal by saying that my joke is a reference to the awesome reasoning skills of attorneys, particularly in parsing the finer points of pronouncements and regulations.)

As for me, I would be more likely to portray Santa than to sit on his lap. Sigh.

Your commentaries on Christmas are the deeply reflective insights of the Ellen we all know and love so much. Welcome back.

I found a "ridge-top" experience in the book by Ace Collins "Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas". In explaining "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", Mr. Collins explains that "rest" actually meant "make and keep" when the carol was written, and that "merry" meant "great" or "mighty". Therefore the title really means "God Make You Great, Gentlemen" - because Christ's birth has truly transformed the world. Furthermore, "Merry Christmas!" does not mean "Have a happy holiday season!" but rather "Remember how powerful that event was - and continues to be!"

For a while now I've been cynically awaiting the annual argument at this blog over the merits and demerits of the movie "It's A Wonderful Life" (which, I'll say with a wink, is around here abbreviated as "IAWL"). This year I'm struck by the scene at the end where Jimmy Stewart is running home through the streets shouting "Merry Christmas!!" to everyone and everything. I imagine him actually saying "Mighty Christmas!!" and meaning it; the film shows us a man transformed from darkness and despair into the recognition of the goodness of God through all the trials. Christmas is mighty enough to save his life, and that of Ebenezer Scrooge (as I'm debating the merits of George C. Scott vs. Jim Carrey), and how many countless others in the "dead" of winter.

Gotta go; Mannheim Steamroller's playing "Silent Night", and I'm going to visualize us all standing on the mountaintop, looking down on a snow-covered village in Austria as Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber lead their congregation. I have my doubts that the lyrics are historically accurate; there was probably precious little silence with all those Israelites forced by Rome to travel, and if Mary was anything like my wife, she may have just given birth but she wouldn't want the place to be a mess - even if the guests were shepherds. (And if they were *shepherds*, then, well, it would be a good idea to hide anything worth stealing. Point them toward the baby in the manger, Joseph, and away from our travel supplies.) But I know what the carol's authors meant: for the first time, peace on Earth was a realistic hope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_rest_you_merry,_gentlemen#Lyrics

Hope you can join me, if only for a moment. It's really nice up here, and the view is, hmmm... "mighty".

and Parasites both Real and Metaphorical.

Is it possible to be Away With Leave, Away on Medical Leave, and AWOL all at the same time? That rather sums up how I've been feeling about being away from this blog to the point of not keeping up with comments; thus the feeling of being AWOL (I doubt anyone needs an *). I didn't even see Lee's reference to me in relation to YEC till today. I haven't researched the data for myself so my personal stance on the age of the earth is "I know there's a debate and I don't currently have a strong opinion." I had that conversation with my atheist sister two summers ago when she was shocked to find out that I am a Creationist. We grew up hearing Carl Sagan's "billions and billions" coming out of our family TV and drank in "ancient universe" beliefs as facts.

I've been Away With Leave coping with home, school, and Christmas. The Medical Leave is due to finally finding a concrete cause for my stomach problems of the past two years. Discovering a parasite in my gut would account for the gastric eosinophilia that was found after I endured a stomach scope last December. Feeling half-dead at times from this parasite makes me wonder if the cultural Christmas I've been dealing with lately is a parasite on God's purposes for sending his son to the earth. My kids keep talking about what they want for Christmas.

"What's Christmas really about?" I ask them.
"Jesus' birth," they reply.
"So, it's not about the presents?"
"No," they say.
However, I doubt they’d react like the people in Whoville if a Grinch visited our home on Christmas Eve.

Yesterday, my son asked, "Why are you working on that needlepoint so much?"
"Because I want to get these gifts done before Christmas to give to people."
"But Christmas isn't about the presents," he stated.
*sigh*

Much of me doesn’t really want to spend all this time making gifts for others. Sure, I’m introverted. But how often to is that my excuse for simply being selfish with my time? (Lee, are you paying attention? No picture with Santa? Bah Humbug indeed!) Unlike Lee, I’m happily rooted in one spot and rarely travel away from home. And yet, I spend very little time developing face-to-face relationships with others outside my family. On the other hand, so much of my “Christmas preparations” are simply because it’s expected of our culture. I don’t do it joyfully to celebrate our Savior’s birth. At least I’m to the point of questioning why I’m doing what I’m doing. From the article that started our comments:

“It is not so much faithfulness as it is fear when we encourage our children never to question the beliefs we’re passing down to them. It is damaging to our witness — hugely damaging — when we show fear of open inquiry and respond in reactionary ways to questions and criticisms about the faith. We are called to conserve the fundamental truths and values that God communicated to us through Jesus Christ, but always also to reassess how we understand and apply those truths and values in the light of the best knowledge available to us.”

Fear of open inquiry describes my childhood church experience. It hearkens to Gina’s post “The difference between education and indoctrination”
http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/tp-home/blog-archives/blog-archives/entry/4/17849
I’m so often selfish with my time wanting to simply read and write rather than interact even with my own husband and children. While I do have frank conversations with my children and do my best to steer clear of the “believe this ‘cause I said so” message, I think I could be a lot more proactive in teaching my children the tenets of our faith rather than leaving them to learn to their own devices so much. Conserving my learned habits isn’t exactly reassessing how I understand and apply God’s truths.

The slippery slopes and ridge-top analogy of Timothy Dalrymple’s article - “That Person will lead us forward, along the ridge-top above the slippery slopes” - can be applied to many situations. Much of my Christmas preparations feel like I have left selfish introvertedness and traveled through a tunnel to the side of Cultural Christmas. What does it look like to travel the ridge-top with Jesus during the Christmas season?

Actually, what I was thinking of was the thing about "It's a relationship not a religion"(you mean we have a not-religion with prayers, sacred buildings, and rituals?) and "serve out of love, not out of duty"(You mean your TELLING me not to serve out of duty. You mean it's my DUTY not to serve out of duty?).

Jason, you always, *always* say the most thought-provoking things. I've been pondering your statement almost continually ever since you made it.

Perhaps it was partly the timing of your remarks: when I read them, I was at work at 6:30pm. The workplace was having a Christmas party, complete with a Santa on whose lap one could sit and get photographed, and on all three floors were games, food, activities, and so on. There were probably 500 or more people, mostly children, in a relatively small building. The glimpses I saw of them suggested that everyone was having a great time.

I, however, was sequestered in an upstairs cubicle, hunched over my laptop and racing the clock. I was trying to figure out why the configuration for the application server was denying access to LDAP, and... nah, you *don't* wanna know. Suffice it to say I was focused on something deeply technical, and thereby avoiding relationships with all those people, until one of them suggested I get something to eat and I realized my only intake since 6am had been coffee. I grabbed some food, skating around sugar-high children and (for the moment) smiling adults, and rushed back upstairs.

Then your comment hit me like a ton of bricks. Even though what I was doing was out of necessity and was high stress, I realized I actually *preferred* it to the crush of people.

And that in fact, it's how I usually approach Christmas: trying to get a lot done in a terrible hurry, and using my workload to avoid relationships.

Well, I believe it's a pity to rush through this season having finished tasks and only getting some holiday food. And I think this is true of life, also. It's one of the reasons I comment here; with my travel schedule, face-to-face interactions with friends is difficult, but my Pointificator colleagues are much more readily available.

I actually know firsthand about churches where social interaction is paramount and quiet contemplation is effectively discouraged. And I agree that getting people focused on God by way of rules instead of focused on each other would be a welcome relief for some of us introverts. But I also know that the "focus on God by way of rules" can easily become "focus on rules" not only for oneself, but for others as well. It seems we are social animals, and one of the advantages of liberalism over conservatism is that liberals focus on people - which we introverts can use to our advantage. (Thought I saw the YOD twitch ever so slightly, but it appears to be fully at rest now.) We can complain that our needs are not being fully met (or we're not permitted self-actualization, or whatever the psychobabble du jour) and usually get a pass. (As I said, I'm familiar with the notion of liberal fascism.) In conservative circles I've been known to point out that Jesus went away to pray by himself, and that certain conservatives seem to not want to permit others to follow Him in that way. But that was when I was grumpy.

At any rate, Mr. Taylor, I want to thank you most sincerely for another of your excellent remarks. And if we're able to meet face-to-face between now and New Year's (no guarantees; I have a lot to get done in my time off ;-) ), I promise I'll let you be as introverted as you like. I'll buy the coffee.

The thing is, Lee, I grew up in a Church that could seem phariseeical about works but could also seem phariseeical about emotion. So much so that there seems sometimes to be an invisible sign on the door that says, "no introverts past this point." And so much so that talk of being free from the law seems a mockery because one can envy the law as a sort of liberation-it being easier to control whether you eat meat with dairy then it is to control whether or not you have a relationship.

Gregory/Shane (sorry; I really should know by now which one you prefer), your principle is correct. But I didn't meet Mr. Ham briefly; I was one of his gofers for an entire weekend. And you are correct that anyone can have a bad day.

Please recall, though, that my point is not that Ken Ham might be rude. It's that his case for his beliefs is a strong one - such that I might follow him even if he were cruel.

As for me, no - I expect to be treated as Kostya treated me in another thread. That cynicism means that I am often pleasantly surprised, and only rarely shocked.

Jason, we're speaking in generalities, not absolutes. And my Jewish friend, a modern-day Pharisee, is a very good friend indeed. And Jonah Goldberg has made a strong case for fascism being a liberal problem, not a conservative one. You can distinguish between danger to an individual and danger to society as a whole, if you like.

I have also met him, and can vouch his character and demeanor. He was a highly engaging and interesting fellow. For all you know, Lee, you could have caught him in a poor mood. Take care not to allow your view of his beliefs and organization to cloud your judgement about the man, himself. Wouldn't you expect others to afford you the same courtesy after only a single meeting?

Also Lee, "Probably not their Gramps was a legalist classmates" comes close to writing people off. As C.S. Lewis once said, "One must not be phariseeical even to pharisees".

"Utterly sincere" is dubious. The best example of someone who was sincerely trying to live phariseeically was the Rich Young Ruler. He was treated politely and we have no reason to assume that he did not eventually come to Christ. For all we know he could have actually been St Paul. The Pharisees that were being berated are not so easily interpreted as being sincere. At the least that is not necessarily the traditional interpretation. In any case they were often the type of people who were more phariseeical about others then themselves and that vice cannot be laid on all conservative Christians.

But be that as it may, in my experience liberals, Christian or not are at least equally phariseeical if not more so.