the thoughts swimming in my head lately

I want to tell you about these things:

Our Christmas 2012/New Year’s 2013
It has been deliberately low-key, and I liked it.  A big part of the low-keyness was for convenience:

The Christmas Tree – instead of our old, bulky, dust-gathering tree, our tree was a real tree, er shrub.  My principled self’s reason for using it is I wanted to bring in a new, more meaningful Christmas symbol that is the Jesse Tree. My practical self’s is it didn’t take up valuable space in our tiny unit.

Gifts – I convinced my colleagues to do away with our gift giving (which was starting to feel obligatory) and have instead a ‘shared experience’. We toyed with doing the rounds at the homes for the aged, but we lacked the energy. So we settled for the easiest to pull off: an eat-all-you-can fest.  For their kids, the idea was to give experiential gifts, so I gave tickets to a museum.  Gift buying was generally a breeze.

13 round fruits – totally abandoned the round fruits, with the permission of my mother who is the family’s NY tradition keeper.  My principled self invoked Roman 8:28 (“And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love Him.” ). My practical self just didn’t want the hassle of collecting the lucky 13 fruits which, according to my mother’s handbook should include a twin-head pineapple for improved luck.  And do I have to tell you how the prices of fruits go wild leading to new year’s?

The media noche – we didn’t bother finding out what are supposed to be the lucky aoohdfnd not-lucky food; we just prepared what was easy to prepare and what we actually wanted to eat.   I didn’t feel harried and there were no obscene quantities of leftovers.

Some people might say that not making the effort to make the holidays a wee bit more special is so un-mother.  We’re supposed to make Christmas extra special for kids.  I hope my kids don’t feel that, and if they do, I hope they forgive me.  But more important, I hope my kids don’t feel like they have to wait for Christmas to feel our family’s togetherness and love.  I hope they don’t need Christmas for the feel good moments because, well, if so, isn’t that tragic?

Matthew 6:33
This is what I said would be my verse for 2013, seeking God above all else.
I used to make long list of New Year resolutions, but most of these resolutions don’t cross over to the list of accomplishments.  So the list feels stale, with all the recycling it went through. I said maybe I need to change approaching things. Maybe it’s time I recognize there’s more to will and motivation when it comes to changing yourself, or anything for that matter.

God’s grace.

And then this verse just presented itself during a conversation with colleagues.  It spoke to me, and I’m claiming it.

But what does it mean to seek God, I’m not even sure.  I want to operationalize God-seeking in my life, not only during Sundays when I’m psyched up for depth and soul connecting.  How do you seek God in the context of the day-to-day and the mundane, because this is where my challenge lies?

I want my life to be a manifestation of my God-seeking.  I want my family life, my relationships, my work, my credit card bills, my driving, to be an expression of my deep yearning for God. (note to self: for starters, how about resisting that urge to honk hoping it will make the other driver feel guilty about cutting you?)

By God’s grace.

The Man in the Arena
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,

because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly . . ."

This is from Teddy Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship in a Republic”.  It’s a long one, but if you care for speeches that don’t BS, that take a clear stand about certain beliefs, avoid platitudes and ambiguities, then this is a good read.

Sometimes I’d like to daydream about the things I would be doing if money was no object.  What would be my arena?

I think I used to be passionate about certain things at work, but somehow along the way I started feeling jaded.  And that’s something I promised myself I wouldn’t to turn out to be.   I like to think about myself as having that fire, the drive to do and produce something meaningful at work.  I don’t know about you but work plays a big role in my self-definition.  

I pray for passion for things that matter, for spunk and stamina, for kindness and understanding for people who don’t seem to get it, for forgiveness for myself for unmet expectations, forthe wisdom to know meaningful passion from vanity, for useful skills.   And when I have indeed done the things I dreamed of doing, I pray for the grace to proclaim, I did it only by God’s Grace.

These are the things that swam in my head reading the speech.  Be careful indeed what you read.