And God was small...

I was really inspired by this homily from Midnight Mass and so I'm sharing it with you. (Even if he wears red Prada shoes, Pope Benedict certainly knows Jesus a little bit.) Today has been a good day. As I was driving home from Christmas festivities, I realized that one reason Christmas has traditionally been hard for me is that in my family so much is made of it. It seems that every moment is fraught with "Are we fulfilling every detail of this tradition? Are we topping last year's food and presents? Are we having more people over and more things to do than we ever did before?" And making it big has never made it good for me. This year it was GOOD and the reason is, it was small. God came small. He came as a tiny baby in a manger. He came poverty-stricken with no hope for grandeur. Thank you, Jesus, that this day could be small and ordinary and yet so extraordinary. I can't remember as stress-free a Christmas as this in years. I'm so glad I got to spend it remembering your birthday, and remembering that it's also just another Monday.

*Pope Benedict XVI's midnight mass homily:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We have just heard in the Gospel the message given by the angels to the shepherds during that Holy Night, a message which the Church now proclaims to us: "To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Lk 2:11-12). Nothing miraculous, nothing extraordinary, nothing magnificent is given to the shepherds as a sign. All they will see is a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, one who, like all children, needs a mother’s care; a child born in a stable, who therefore lies not in a cradle but in a manger. God ’s sign is the baby in need of help and in poverty. Only in their hearts will the shepherds be able to see that this baby fulfils the promise of the prophet Isaiah, which we heard in the first reading: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder" (Is 9:5). Exactly the same sign has been given to us. We too are invited by the angel of God, through the message of the Gospel, to set out in our hearts to see the child lying in the manger.

God’s sign is simplicity. God’s sign is the baby. God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us. This is how he reigns. He does not come with power and outward splendour. He comes as a baby – defenceless and in need of our help. He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength. He takes away our fear of his greatness. He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child. He wants nothing other from us than our love, through which we spontaneously learn to enter into his feelings, his thoughts and his will – we learn to live with him and to practise with him that humility of renunciation that belongs to the very essence of love. God made himself small so that we could understand him, welcome him, and love him. The Fathers of the Church, in their Greek translation of the Old Testament, found a passage from the prophet Isaiah that Paul also quotes in order to show how God’s new ways had already been foretold in the Old Testament. There we read: "God made his Word short, he abbreviated it" (Is 10:23; Rom 9:28). The Fathers interpreted this in two ways. The Son himself is the Word, the Logos; the eternal Word became small – small enough to fit into a manger. He became a child, so that the Word could be grasped by us. In this way God teaches us to love the little ones. In this way he teaches us to love the weak. In this way he teaches us respect for children. The child of Bethlehem directs our gaze towards all children who suffer and are abused in the world, the born and the unborn. Towards children who are placed as soldiers in a violent world; towards children who have to beg; towards children who suffer deprivation and hunger; towards children who are unloved. In all of these it is the Child of Bethlehem who is crying out to us; it is the God who has become small who appeals to us. Let us pray this night that the brightness of God’s love may enfold all these children. Let us ask God to help us do our part so that the dignity of children may be respected. May they all experience the light of love, which mankind needs so much more than the material necessities of life.

And so we come to the second meaning that the Fathers saw in the phrase: "God made his Word short". The Word which God speaks to us in Sacred Scripture had become long in the course of the centuries. It became long and complex, not just for the simple and unlettered, but even more so for those versed in Sacred Scripture, for the experts who evidently became entangled in details and in particular problems, almost to the extent of losing an overall perspective. Jesus "abbreviated" the Word – he showed us once more its deeper simplicity and unity. Everything taught by the Law and the Prophets is summed up – he says – in the command: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind… You shall love your neighbour as yourself" (Mt 22:37-40). This is everything – the whole faith is contained in this one act of love which embraces God and humanity. Yet now further questions arise: how are we to love God with all our mind, when our intellect can barely reach him? How are we to love him with all our heart and soul, when our heart can only catch a glimpse of him from afar, when there are so many contradictions in the world that would hide his face from us? This is where the two ways in which God has "abbreviated" his Word come together. He is no longer distant. He is no longer unknown. He is no longer beyond the reach of our heart. He has become a child for us, and in so doing he has dispelled all doubt. He has become our neighbour, restoring in this way the image of man, whom we often find so hard to love. For us, God has become a gift. He has given himself. He has entered time for us. He who is the Eternal One, above time, he has assumed our time and raised it to himself on high. Christmas has become the Feast of gifts in imitation of God who has given himself to us. Let us allow our heart, our soul and our mind to be touched by this fact! Among the many gifts that we buy and receive, let us not forget the true gift: to give each other something of ourselves, to give each other something of our time, to open our time to God. In this way anxiety disappears, joy is born, and the feast is created. During the festive meals of these days let us remember the Lord’s words: "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite those who will invite you in return, but invite those whom no one invites and who are not able to invite you" (cf. Lk 14:12-14). This also means: when you give gifts for Christmas, do not give only to those who will give to you in return, but give to those who receive from no one and who cannot give you anything back. This is what God has done: he invites us to his wedding feast, something which we cannot reciprocate, but can only receive with joy. Let us imitate him! Let us love God and, starting from him, let us also love man, so that, starting from man, we can then rediscover God in a new way!

And so, finally, we find yet a third meaning in the saying that the Word became "brief" and "small". The shepherds were told that they would find the child in a manger for animals, who were the rightful occupants of the stable. Reading Isaiah (1:3), the Fathers concluded that beside the manger of Bethlehem there stood an ox and an ass. At the same time they interpreted the text as symbolizing the Jews and the pagans – and thus all humanity – who each in their own way have need of a Saviour: the God who became a child. Man, in order to live, needs bread, the fruit of the earth and of his labour. But he does not live by bread alone. He needs nourishment for his soul: he needs meaning that can fill his life. Thus, for the Fathers, the manger of the animals became the symbol of the altar, on which lies the Bread which is Christ himself: the true food for our hearts. Once again we see how he became small: in the humble appearance of the host, in a small piece of bread, he gives us himself.

All this is conveyed by the sign that was given to the shepherds and is given also to us: the child born for us, the child in whom God became small for us. Let us ask the Lord to grant us the grace of looking upon the crib this night with the simplicity of the shepherds, so as to receive the joy with which they returned home (cf. Lk 2:20). Let us ask him to give us the humility and the faith with which Saint Joseph looked upon the child that Mary had conceived by the Holy Spirit. Let us ask the Lord to let us look upon him with that same love with which Mary saw him. And let us pray that in this way the light that the shepherds saw will shine upon us too, and that what the angels sang that night will be accomplished throughout the world: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased." Amen!

*End of homily

I'm literally over-joyed this Christmas at how God has shown up in the midst of some serious pain and grieving. Here's the song that's been running through my head today:

These feet of mine can't stop from dancing
These hands of mine, can't help but raise
This voice of mine, can't keep from singing
And my heart just overflows, my heart just overflows
With His goodness and grace

Do you enjoy fine dining?

A guy I know famously once asked this of Jill. And Jill in all her utter sweetness actually answered in a civil manner. But you have to know that we have spent the 12 months since that famous line mocking it because seriously, who doesn't enjoy fine dining? In the moment, I wanted to respond with something like: "No, she enjoys licking the floor at Taco Bell."

Seriously though, there has been a pathetic lack of blogging. And I just want to go on record and say that that was for your own safety. I had a crappy, crappy couple of days from Sunday until about Thursday, and the yuck that was coming out of my life was not fit for publication.

But I am mostly back to normal now, so I thought I'd spin you a couple of tidbits from my crawls around the wiry web.

Number 1: Amanda Congdon on ABCNews.com has something to say about Time Magazine naming me Person of the Year. Luckily, if you read all the way to the end, it turns out I'm still Person of the Year, and not just another person. Phew.

Number 2: The Google doodle is quite impressive this year. I think they are doodling a page out of my random book with this one. Kangaroos and Christmas? Go figure. Or go doodle.

On a holiday note, tonight I had the most amazing meal. Spaghetti with two kinds of sauce: garlic clam sauce and a marinara wine sauce with italian sausage. It might sound mundane, but it was divine. I was especially hungry and that always makes good food even better. I'm not a patrician anymore, but I do enjoy fine dining.

Wishing you the merriest of meals and the true joy of Jesus now and throughout the New Year. Merry Christmas!

This just in...!

...Time Magazine named ME Person of the Year! Little ol' Delta Dawn...how sweet of them...

From www.drudgereport.com at 6:03PM PST:

**EXCLUSIVE** 7:38 PM ET... IT'S YOU! YOU were named TIME magazine 'Person of the Year' Saturday for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet content such as 'blogs', video-file sharing site YouTube and social network MySpace... You -- YES, YOU -- beat out candidates including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi... YOU, YOU, YOU....

So this is Christmas...and what have you done...another year over...a new one just begun...

I loved these image messages I got from Onetruth.com when I was ordering Christmas presents.

3 Items of Note

1. Thanks to Kevin, you can now reach my blog by pointing your browser to DAWNROSALIE.COM

I am so excited about this new development. I am now officially part of the .COM universe!

2. In lieu of actual blogging today, read this blog by Michelle Malkin on one of the reasons I am officially smarter than my friends! Just kidding, but actually it proves that I am bicerebral. I have to figure out a way to incorporate that asset into future resumes. (Yes, I'm a leftie.)

3. It's time for a roll call. If you love it, if you check it, if you read it, Delta Dawn would like to know about it. Post a comment next time you stop by my blog. This is the easiest way to make my day and the best Christmas present you could give me.

If you're at a loss for what to say, tell me the top 3 things on your Christmas list this year.

Remember Veggie Tales?

Last night when I got home from the Expos Christmas Party, I got a message about another kind of Experiment. This fascinated me so much I buzzed on over to http://www.philvischer.com/ to read the full story on what happened to Big Idea Productions, the parent company of Veggie Tales. (Subsequently, I only got 4 hours of sleep.) He is a really good storyteller (and I don't say that lightly) and it is a fascinating story of how even when all our motives are right, we can pass God up as we zoom by in the fast lane towards achieving our dreams.

This is beginning to inform my thoughts about our Rockharbor Experiment.

Two things are happening that got me thinking about the fall of Big Idea.

One, Carl dared the Expos to embrace a "Big Idea" this week (it's also known as the campaign without a name) that is going to definitely stretch our ability to believe in God for big things to happen.

Two, I have the privilege of working with some amazing, sold-out people I love and adore on a new conference called The Soul Restoration Project.

Today we had a meeting to pray for the conference and in a lot of ways I realized that even though some things are not coming together as planned, I know it will ultimately happen and succeed because God is leading it. He is birthing it and there is a need for a place to bring young people together and allow them to experience on a mini-level the kind of healing that takes place in The River. I'm so excited about what God is going to do and how He will help us create this new space for healing to happen.

As far as Carl's Big Idea, I am not sure yet how God is going to use it. But I think reading Phil's story at this stage in the game, I am starting to realize that I need to be soaking this thing in prayer and asking for God to only do what He wills. I want to follow Him and His big ideas, not give him mine and ask Him to bless them.

The Bible always speaks directly to my life and circumstances...

Psalm 56:1 "Be merciful to me, O God, for men hotly pursue me..."

New Orleans, I miss you!

I know I didn't post too much about my New Orleans trip, but I am still thinking and processing about it and am still very much impacted by what we saw and did there. In the meantime, here is a clip from the church we served, Celebration Church, about their year in review. It blows me away when I think about how different this is from what this last year was like at Rockharbor Church in Costa Mesa.

Do you want God to restore your soul?

Join young adults seeking Jesus and His restoration of relationships and healing of the soul.

Experience creative worship, stories of transformed lives, teaching that inspires us go deeper, small group and prayer opportunities to help us process and connect with God.

Check it out at www.soulrestorationproject.org.

Contact Information:
Website: http://www.soulrestorationproject.org
Email address: mailto:info@soulrestorationproject.org

The Soul Restoration Project
PO Box 27451
Anaheim, CA 92809
Phone 714.991.2602

It's a freakin' INFECTION!!

What is the Experiment? It's an infection! Tonight I went to the grocery store to deposit a check at the ATM. The ATM is out of envelopes so I go to the Customer Service desk and ask the lady if they have an envelope in their office. They check and they don't so she says I can walk right down this aisle over here and buy a box of envelopes. (Who knows if the bank will even take a check in a regular white envelope, but whatever.) So I come back to buy the envelopes and I comment, It's ironic I have to spend money to be able to deposit my money in the bank. She says something along the lines of I wish I had money to deposit. And just naturally I thought and said out loud, Well, God provides everything, so just ask Him for what you need. She says, How? I said, Just like we're talking now, talk to Him. She says, Really? And I say, Yeah, I mean I had absolutely no money on November 1st, I wanted to go to New Orleans to do Katrina Relief and I prayed and asked God and He raised $1100 of the $1200 I need so far. She says, Well I really need money, I only have $12.00 in my checking account. So I say, well I will pray for you, that God will come through and provide what you need, you just make sure to look out for it and remember that it's God doing it, ok? I lean over the counter and look at her nametag. Alycia, I say, I really am going to pray for you that God will provide finances for you. So look out for it and remember what I said.

I'm sure this lady thinks I'm crazy. Gregg commented that I probably totally came out of left field for her. Which is fine, because for once in my life, I didn't feel weird at all about being honest about what God is doing. He IS providing for me. I am miraculously able to make ends meet. And I believe He will do this for those who ask Him. I know He provided for me for an entire life I had before I even knew Him. So why wouldn't he bless this woman who is in need? God, increase her $12.00. Send a chunkload of money out of the blue to her. And God, help her to know that You are real right now. Right now, you are I AM in eternity and you are I AM in this moment at 7:17 PM on Saturday December 2nd in 2006. Help her to see the money coming from You and not the person's hands that deliver it to her.

I've come to the conclusion that I've been changed. I'm NOT like this. Or I should say, I have never been like this. But God is changing me. The mission field is HERE and now. What is the Experiment? It's this infection. I went to New Orleans. I met people who were torn down and faced my own torn-down-ness. And God infected me with purpose. I already knew what God was doing in my life right here in my own town, but He loosed my lips to talk about it. He freed me to see the person standing in front of me at the grocery store as the mission. Not as a project, but as someone precious to God and no one has ever told her how to pray to Him. And He needed me to just say, Well, it's just like talking out loud to me. Just ask for what you need. He's listening.

What is the Experiment? It's an infection. And it's taking over my body.