George Grant on Advent

Here is a great summation of the meaning of Advent, dated before the Internet age, by Pastor George Grant, taken from his wonderful book, Christmas Spirit.

"Advent is a season of preparation. For centuries Christians have used the month prior to the celebration of Christ's incarnation to ready their hearts and homes for the great festival. While we moderns tend to do a good bit of bustling about in the crowded hours between Thanksgiving and Christmas - shopping for presents, compiling guest lists, mailing holiday greeting cards, perusing catalogs, decorating hearth and home, baking favorite confections, and getting ready for one party after another - that hardly constitutes the kind of preparation Advent calls for. Indeed, traditionally Advent has been a time of quiet introspection, personal examination, and repentance. A time to slow down, to take stock of the things that matter most, and to do a thorough inner housecleaning. Advent is, as the ancient dogma of the Church asserts, a Little Pascha - a time of fasting, prayer, confession, and reconciliation. All the great Advent stories, hymns, customs, and rituals - from the medieval liturgical antiphons and Scrooge's A Christmas Carol to the lighting of the Advent candles and the eating of Martinmas beef are attuned to this notion: the best way to prepare for the coming of the Lord is to make straight His pathway in our hearts."

Thanksgiving Reflections

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."

G. K. Chesterton

The great essayists, G.K. Chesterton, expressed what a life of robust gratitude should look like in the quote above. Chesterton's point was that gratitude should not be confined to segmented areas of life. Is is right to express gratitude routinely before meals, and at set aside times such as Thanksgiving? Absolutely, yet a life of gratitude encompasses even the most ordinary and mundane activities of life.

I believe the primary sin that afflicts our culture today is the sin of ingratitude. We are simply not a thankful people, and that begins with me. Sure, we set aside, rightfully so, specific times to demonstrate gratitude, but our culture at large rarely expresses this most important of all virtues on a consistent basis. A quick survey of the landscape demonstrates this quite vividly: Occupiers protesting over what really amounts to envy and greed, NBA holdouts consumed with squeezing every last dime out of owners, a best friend's wife abandoning her family after twenty-three years of marriage because she feels she deserves far more out of life than the manifold blessings she has received and is now hardened beyond the ability to see them any longer, or, on a personal level, a husband (I'll leave it to you to figure out of whom I speak!) who takes his wife to task because the home is not as tidy as he prefers when he comes home from being out of town, never taking into account the added demands and burdens placed upon her while he is away!

With that in mind, I want to take the time to list those things for which I am most grateful this Thanksgiving, things both large and small, cosmic and local:

First, I am thankful for a God who loves me and who sent His Son to redeem me from a life of sin and misery. All true gratitude flows solely and exclusively from this reality.

Secondly, I am thankful for a wife of extraordinary ability and commitment to our family, and for five children that God has entrusted to me to steward through life. May they all know the saving grace of God through Christ and may they glorify Him as their chief aim.

Thirdly, I am thankful for a mother who continues to bless me with so much wisdom, a father, now gone, who provided valiantly, and five siblings who made my life an immense joy growing up, particularly at Christmas! Along with this, I am deeply grateful for a grandmother and grandfather who taught me the meaning of joy and tradition growing up.

Fourthly, I am thankful for my church and her pastor, Uri Brito. In a time of theological compromise, he stands as a bulwark of truth in a culture void of absolutes. May God bless his ministry in manifold ways in the coming years.

Fifthly, I am thankful for my closest friends, Tom, Mark, and Richard, who hold me accountable, walk with integrity, and sharpen me with their encouragement and critiques. Additionally, I am deeply grateful for our mens group and all of the men who have become great friends over the course of the last year. It is a great privilege to lead this group and to see such faithfulness in so many men.

Sixthly, I am thankful for the vocation that God has given me to provide for my family and to influence others. In a time of economic hardship, provision is a great blessing.

Seventhly, I am thankful for the ability to undertake the physical challenges of triathlons, duathlons, and marathons, often with family and friends. May I never take this ability for granted and be always and forever grateful for breath in my lungs, strength in my legs and stamina to go the distance, and may these events constantly stand as a reminder to run the race set before me with endurance and hope!

Eighthly, tied to the above, I am thankful for the great work that Paul Epstein and Running Wild are doing within our community. Running Wild is far more than a running store; it is a way of life and a ministry helping so many to develop physical stamina and a more robust outlook upon life.

Finally, I am thankful for this land of liberty, bequeathed to us through great struggle and hardship. She has her failings, and has shifted from her moorings, but she is still the greatest bastion of liberty and opportunity in the world today. May I do my part, however large or small, to reorient her to that path of righteousness that exalts a nation.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the LORD is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations." --Psalm 100:4-5

MLK and Vocation

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Running With Purpose!

Here is a very thoughtful article by a young lady who runs with a purpose! Find out what kept her motivated throughout the Pensacola Half Marathon this past Sunday:

http://www.simplesweetblessings.blogspot.com/