Earthblog

    Your life is full of relationships. You have a relationship with the scale. You stand on it and it tells you a number. Or you close your eyes and the medical assistant says a number. You probably have feelings about the scale. Maybe you hug it occasionally or you beat on it regularly.

    You have a relationship with your bank account. You put money in, you take money out and again it tells you a number. Your balance. Sometimes it sends you mail. Sometimes email. You probably have feelings about your relationship with your bank account.

    You get the idea. Your life is full of relationships to inanimate objects like scales and bank accounts and cars and TV’s and to animate objects like football teams and friends and neighbors and family members.

    One of those many, many relationships is unique in a meaningful way. It is your relationship with God. I don’t mean your relationship to the church – you have one of those too. Or your relationship to the Bible or to worship music or any of those other relationships that are somewhat similar. I mean you and God. Just the one on one relationship between the two of you.

     That is the relationship I want to ask you to focus on today and I want to ask you three questions. I don’t think you will be able to answer them fully this morning so I am hoping you will write them down and spend a little new year/new decade time this afternoon or evening, or tomorrow morning if that’s your best reflecting time, on three questions.

The Reason for Hope
Rev. Terri Hill
Christmas Meditation / December 24, 2009
Luke 2:1-20

“2In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3All went to their own towns to be registered. 4Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” 15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”

    Would you call yourself an optimist, a pessimist, a skeptic, a cynic, a realist or a combination of several of those? Those of you willing to indicate, and by no means do you need to, optimists? Pessimists? Skeptics? Cynics? Realists?

Let me define some terms and you decide where you fit in.

Optimists are the half full glass people. The sun will come out tomorrow. It is sure to get better. When people were asked the chances of a series of bad things happening to them – getting struck by lightning, dying in a car accident, contracting AIDS and so on, a majority of people had what the research calls an “optimism bias.”  “An overly optimistic assessment of the likelihood of positive outcomes.”

The world, as you know, is not a safe place. It has for one thing germ infested places and things. I read a new list this week – the first floor button in an elevator because almost everyone in and out of the elevator pushes that one button. Playgrounds, wow, you don’t ever want to know what kind of invisible dangers lurk on the surfaces there!

And there are dangerous people too. I took a self-defense class in college. I learned to get my keys out of my purse before I leave the building and have them ready. Never walk between parked cars if you can help it, and absolutely never close to a side paneled van. Glance under your car as you walk toward it to make sure no one could grab you from underneath and look in the back seat floorboard before you get in.