Christmas 2014

So I haven't written much of late - at least not on paper - it is what it is.  As has been my tradition however, I generally share my efforts at keeping friends and family informed with our annual Christmas missive.  Which this year was actually more of a New Years letter - it is what it is.

So some will have already received this in the mail.  Others may still be on the way - and the rest - well - this is your brief look into my one page look back at the year that was - 2014.


And then there were three…  Reflections on 2014 from the Christensen family in Colorado

SO… our year was busy – so busy in fact especially toward the end we decided early in December that we would be getting caught up with you all in early January.

For us 2014 seems to have been the start of a profound shift as a family.  The girls are growing up so fast – too fast it feels someday, and we are looking over the horizon at the next phase of our lives, with today being the start of the year we become empty nesters.  This brings an intense spectrum of emotions.  But all in all, we are ready – we are ALL ready – and so it’s OK.

Mallory is now in her junior year at the University of New Mexico and still making the most of her college experience.  Always blazing a path less travelled, this past semester saw her take on an internship with Plant with Purpose, a nonprofit she first encountered on a summer service trip to the Dominican Republic a few years back.  The internship was in San Diego, and she set it all up herself.  I drove out with her, and we had a great time over the Labor Day weekend at the end of August.  Both Jilly and Joy also got to spend weekends there, and her experience was fantastic, with Mal taking several online classes to maintain her full time status and scholarships.  It all came to an end in early December with her boyfriend Cole flying to San Diego to bring her home – to Albuquerque.  That sounds kind of odd – but it feels like home for her for now.  So we make the most of the visits home, which this Christmas was for a short but joy filled week.  Mallory headed back to Albuquerque this past Sunday – and then there were three…

Jilly has entered her senior year of high school.  Her year has included of course lots of hockey, with her high school teammates completing a remarkable third straight undefeated season culminating again in a state championship.  Other extracurricular activities have included choir and mock trial which she seemed to really enjoy.  Choir has featured several special events featuring a wedding at the famous Stanley hotel (The Shining) in Estes Park.  The focus is now firmly on the next phase – COLLEGE!  Most of the applications are in, one school has already accepted her and another offered her a spot on the field hockey team.  With three other applications pending and perhaps two more in the works, this girl who sometimes dislikes making decisions has some big ones coming!!!

Joy and I sometimes just sit back, breathe, and take it all in – sometimes with a calming adult beverage.  We celebrated our 21^st anniversary in July with a fun day exploring various parts of Denver.  I, of course, was making the most of celebrating the whole year as my 50^th year, which culminated in a fabulous surprise gathering with family and friends at “our local” – Jake’s.  We have enjoyed travels with both of our girls, little getaways together, and still date as often as we can.  Our travels this year were mostly extensions of something the girls were doing – trips to San Diego, Memphis extending to Myrtle Beach, Boston and finally Las Vegas tacked on to Palm Desert for Thanksgiving.  We also enjoyed getaways into the mountains with day trips and a week in Breckenridge.  Although Jilly’s choir performances are impressive, our entertainment highlight of the year had to be seeing Fleetwood Mac!

So from us to you, our friends and family, we have loved being a part of your 2014, and we look forward to what 2015 has in store - sharing in both the good times and the hard times and growing closer together.

"I said to the man, who stood at the gate of the year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'  And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'" - Minnie Louise Haskins

Love always – Peter, Joy, Mallory & Jillian

 

Oh - and there were an assortment of happy snaps some online service graciously (and inexpensively) assembled into a card.  Joy does that artsy stuff and who knows if we even have an image of the final product so this will have to do - it is what it is :)

 

 

 

 

Imago Dei - Image of God

This post is the result of the collision of several different trains of thought. 

I have been posting on various days as we have moved from Thanksgiving to Christmas, art in various forms as my “hymn” for the day.  For, Christmas Eve, I had in mind to share a clip from one of our traditional family Christmas movies, The Family Stone.  Simple right…

But this whole thing this past week over Duck Dynasty, and extending back maybe a little further, the debate on whether or not Santa and even Jesus is white, it has been frankly, a little irritating.  And I say this carefully.  There are many people I know well who are quite incensed at what was said initially by Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson.  This to them is very personal, and they have every right to be upset.  I am not irritated because they are upset, or even because others are jumping to his defense.  What irritates me is that much of the conversation is diatribes from both sides, doing little by creating more fires of hatred, fanned on by a sickening media hungry for controversy.  We have lost it seems the necessary grace and patience for civil discourse – we are not interested in discovering the position of others because we are to firmly entrenched in our own.

And then the morning of Christmas eve in the gym, I find myself watching a piece on the remarkable transformation in the papacy.  Video and images of Pope Francis doing and saying things that are not only shaking up the church he leads, but getting people across the Christian faith to take a good look at themselves through the prism of what the bible says about what we should be like as followers of Jesus.  I’m no expert on other faiths, but I suspect he has earned quite a bit of respect and has unleashed some soul searching there also.

And as they showed again, images of the pope embracing a man terribly disfigured by what I don’t know, it occurred to me…

Imago Dei - Image of God

The creation story in the Christian bible, probably quite similar in the Jewish Torah instructs us that God made us in the image of God, that we reflect the nature of God, even that we are godlike.  The problem is, we don’t really believe this, not about ourselves much of the time, and certainly not about those who are radically different to us, who do not look like us, do not think like us, or do things we find unspeakable horrors…

As a good friend of mine, Nar Martinez has said, “If the God you serve is always for everything you like and against all the things you hate, you've simply made him up.”

 

Imago Dei – Phil Robertson was made in the image of God, before and after he apologized for the hurtful, but deeply held personal beliefs he shared

Imago Dei – Syrian refugees, not just white Christians were made in the image of God

 

 

Imago Dei – Regardless of how we were coming into this world, or have become, we were made and remain in the image of God

 

 

Imago Dei – Megyn Kelly and all who have had fun publically mocking her for the silly things she said – yes – all of them – made in the image of God

 

 

Imago Dei – the least amongst us, and those who are unaware of them – again, made in the image of God

 

 

Imago Dei – these three boys, now facing murder charges for killing an Australian baseball player “for the fun of it” – also made in the image of God

 

We want God to be just like us, well mostly anyway.  But God is not so limited.  Most simply as I see it, all of us are like God – if not, God is not like us at all?  God is so immense, it takes all of creation, and all of humanity as the jewel of that creation to gain just a hint of what God is like.

And so back to The Family Stone, and why it had particular significance as my mind wandered this Christmas.  The Dinner scene as it is described on the DVD and generally can be found in searches holds for me a pretty darn good image of why God decided to intervene in such an extravagant way as unfolded that first Christmas.  And it also contrasts in the same character, our human limitations.  I am not tech savvy enough to extract a more focused segment, but the whole five minutes is worth the watching to understand the whole story and probably makes more sense anyway. 

After the stiff, starchy and quite conservative Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) fumbles around and through what I perceive as ignorance and insensitivity (as opposed to hate) insults and belittles gay people in particular, but also black people, Sybil (Diane Keaton), the matriarch of the family says and signs to her deeply hurt deaf and gay son, “I love you”.

Dinner Scene - The Family Stone

 

God’s love for us is not predicated on whether we are black or white, male or female, adherents of the Christian, Muslim or any other faith, gay – straight – lesbian - bi-sexual or transgendered, powerful and privileged or poor and marginalized.  We were created in the image and likeness of God, and yet right from the outset, different, yet no indication of inequality.  And so that is my takeaway, and I hope also perhaps one of yours this Christmas – that God Loves You.  And if God loves you, as Pope Francis shared insightfully and wisely this year, “who am I to judge”.

 

Genesis 1:26-28, The Message (emphasis mine)

God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them

        reflecting our nature

    So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,

        the birds in the air, the cattle,

    And, yes, Earth itself,

        and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”

    God created human beings;

        he created them godlike,

    Reflecting God’s nature.

        He created them male and female.