The suprisingly most beautiful website today

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

Holy Night

Reflections from Romero

I found some Oscar Romero reflections on Christmas here. And the following quote was one that struck me deeply:

God keeps on saving in history. And so, in turning once again to the episode of Christ’s birth at Bethlehem, we come not to recall Christ’s birth twenty centuries ago, but to live that birth here, in the twentieth century, this year, in our own Christmas here in El Salvador. By the light of these Bible readings we must continue all the history that God has in his eternal mind, even to the concrete events of our abductions, of our tortures, of our own sad history. That is where we are to find our God.

Yellow

This video reminds me of my wedding - in a good way.

O Holy Night

I recently learned the history of the song "O Holy Night" (and you can read a summary of that history here, or see the wiki article here).

What's so fitting about this story of a marginal church-goer and a Jewish man who wrote the words and music is how it reflects the gospel story itself in which Jews and Gentiles, religious and non-religious, slaves and free are all welcome to worship at the feet of the Christ child. What might be possible if the world were to "fall on [its] knees" and "hear the angels' voices"? Perhaps all oppression might actually cease.... I'm not holding out for that in this earth, but in the new earth to come all oppression will in fact cease.

And so we pray in this advent season, "Come, Lord Jesus."

More on Culture Making by Andy Crouch

Here's another quote from Crouch that I read today:

When elites use their privilege to create cultural goods that primarily serve other elites, that is nothing but the way of the world, the standard operating procedure of culture. Furthermore, even when the culturally powerful deign to share their blessings with the powerless, but in ways that leave the powerless dependent and needy, this too is simply another marginally kinder version of the way of the world. Likewise, when the powerless cultivate and create culture that simply reinforces their oppression without bringing any real change in the horizons of possibility and impossibility, or when those in desperate circumstances rise up against the powerful, simply creating new structures of power in their place, we rightly recognized what is happening as business as usual.

So it is no surprise, for example, to discover that two-thirds of American philanthropy actually goes to institutions (whether museums, orchestras or churches) that primarily serve the rich – essentially, the wealthy underwriting their own cultural experiences with the benefit of a tax deduction… (209 italics mine).

Culture Making by Andy Crouch

Andy Crouch has written a fresh and thoughtful book on the dynamics between gospel and culture. I don't agree with 1/4 of what he writes, but I love it. This quote is paradigmatic of the witty writing and insightful reflection:

Indeed, I sometimes wonder if breathless rhetoric about changing the world is actually about changing the subject – from our own fitfully suppressed awareness that we did not ask to be brought into this world, have only vaguely succeeded in figuring it out, and will end our days in radical dependence on something or someone other than ourselves. If our excitement about changing the world leads us into the grand illusion that we stand somehow outside the world, knowing what’s best for it, tools and goodwill and gusto at the ready, we have not yet come to terms with the reality that the world has changed us far more than we will ever change it. Beware of the world changers – they have not yet learned the true meaning of sin.