Merry Christmas, Sarajevo.

In my exploration of Christmas this year, the following has been profound and telling.

"For as long as I can remember, my family has celebrated Christmas. It was a social rather than religious event that we always looked forward to, especially as children. A few days before Christmas, my mother would have a big party, inviting her friends over and serving eggnog and shortbread cookies. On Christmas Eve, we would read 'Twas the night before Christmas' and, before going to sleep, hang empty socks next to the fireplace and leave, for Santa, a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. The next morning we got up early and opened stockings full of trinkets that our mother-turned-Santa had substituted for the empty socks. The glass of milk would be depleted, and most of the cookies would be gone, proof that Santa had come and nourished himself in our home. Our mother would remind us during breakfast to save room for the big turkey lunch we would eat in a few hours, and after rushing upstairs to brush our teeth and wash our faces, we opened the presents piled under the Christmas tree. We made a few concessions to the fact that we were Jews celebrating a Christian holiday; the tree was topped with a non-denominational star rather than a replica of Jesus, and we did not go to any church services. Otherwise, it was a typical American Christmas, down to the three-log fire in the fireplace even if the weather was warm, as it usually was in Los Angeles. If necessary, we would turn on the air conditioner.
I think of Christmases past, and of my Christmas in Sarajevo, and I am tempted to classify them as poles apart. In one, there is abundance and peace and love, and in the other, hunger and warfare and hatred. But the more I think about it, the more I find that the Christmases are similar, and that if I had to select one in which the spirit of the occasion reached its fullest expression, I would select my Christmas in Sarajevo, because that's where I found miracles.
The parishioners of St. Anthony's Church were deprived of the right to attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, because the wartime curfew meant they had to be home before ten o'clock, and at any time of day a packed church would be an inviting target for the Serbs in the hills, like a red cape waved in front of a bull. So they made do. At four in the afternoon, they crammed into the church's basement chapel, winter coat to winter coat, standing because there was no room for sitting, and as the temperature quickly rose, and the room took on the heavy smell of damp wool, everyone started to perspire, but nobody cared, for this was far preferable to the cold outside. A choir sang hymns from the back of the basement, and everyone joined in when it was time, creating harmony beyond music.
The main defense mechanism of the people in Sarajevo was to stand together, helping one another out, because no one else would. Suffering does much to bring people together and coax out the good in them, making a hero out of an office worker who, in normal times, would not help an old woman cross the street, but in wartime runs into a street at the risk of his own life to save her from sniper fire. The man might be a Muslim, the woman a Croat. It no longer mattered, for they were in it together, just as they were in the basement chapel together, Muslims, Croats, Serbs, Jews. If you wanted to find the Christmas spirit on Christmas Eve in 1992, you could do no better than to visit St. Anthony's Church in Sarajevo.
The priest's name was Ljubo Lucic. He had no altar to stand on, so only a lucky few in the front rows could see him and the sickly Christmas tree behind him; it had been scavenged from the forests at the front line, and it looked every bit as malnourished as the parishioners to whom it was supposed to deliver good cheer. Father Lucic told his flock that they were getting an insight into Jesus that few others had; the terror in their lives was like the terror of Jesus' life; their poverty was no different from Jesus'; and Jesus was a refugee, cast from one town to another. I could see people wiping tears from their eyes, out of sadness or happiness. Perhaps Father Lucic heard the soft sobs and worried about them, for he suddenly said, almost in desperation, "The Christmas message in our situation is that life is worth living, no matter what."
There is a tradition in Sarajevo that people of different religions visit one another on religious holidays. On Christmas, the Pelzls' Muslim and Serb friends would come by for a visit. In turn, the Pelzls would visit their Muslim friends on the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and visit their Serb friends on Orthodox Christmas, which falls in January. Kevin, Dzemal and I were part of the parade of visitors who stopped by the Pelzl household on Christmas Day. After shedding our flak jackets at their doorstep, we sat down at their dining table and were served a platter of sweets, which were unimaginable delicacies under the circumstances.
The Pelzls lived in a building not far from the Holiday Inn, within shouting distance of the front line, and they kept count of the number of direct mortar hits on their building, which was nine, if I recall correctly. Several people had been injured. The Pelzls were untouched, although bits of shrapnel and a sniper bullet or two had crashed through their windows and and struck the living room, leaving the sort of holes you get when you try to drive a nail into a wall and succeed only in making a mess of chipped plaster. A small statue of the Virgin Mary stood on a table in a corner, presided over by one such shrapnel hole, an ironic halo of sorts. Mary's serene smile seemed a bit mischievous.
The Christmas preparations had been under way for three months, with military precision, as though the family was planning an ambush rather than a meal. Food had been salted away since August, when they collected nuts for the baklava. Smoked ham that a friend gave them in November had been put aside in a kitchen cabinet, the only meat in the house, delectable and untouchable. Wood was stocked up to ensure that there would be enough fuel for baking, and money was saved so that, a few days before Christmas, Janja could buy eggs on the black market for her sweets. She had been able to buy four. Traditionally, the family's big Christmas Eve dinner was centred around fresh fish from Janja's hometown of Bodanski Brod, along the Sava River, but it had been captured by Serbs early in the war, and in any event fresh fish was a laughable impossibility in Sarajevo, so the family made do with canned tuna fish.
On Christmas morning, Karlo and Janja went to mass at separate churches. It had nothing to do with a marital spat or preferences for different priests. They were afraid that if they went to the same church, and if it was bombed, their children would be left without parents. They lessened the odds of this happening by splitting up; one of them might get killed but probably not both. This passed as normal behaviour in Sarajevo. Parents rarely went outdoors together. If, by chance, they had to leave home at the same time but for different destination, perhaps one going to work, the other searching for food, they would not step outside at the same time. One would stay behind and wait until the other was far enough ahead so that a single shell could not kill both of them.
The discussion turned to faith. Times of tragedy test a believer's faith in God, and the worst tragedy of all was being inflicted in Bosnia, so I put a blunt question to my hosts. How can you believe in a God who permits such things to happen? Karlo and Janja smiled with self-confidence, as though they expected the question and knew it was not rhetorical but came from my heart. I was not interested in starting a theological debate, for that ground has been plowed many times before by people far more learned than any of us in that apartment, and no one had yet come up with a bullet-proof answer, and never would. But I wanted to know their answer.
Janja, who had been quiet, spoke up, and as she did so, she looked at the statue of the Virgin Mary.
"I believe more strongly than before," she said. "I can't explain why, but I have more faith now. I pray more, I believe more, and I believe that this is God's will."
Even now, after a long time has passed, I can't decide whether her answer was touching or insane."

-Peter Maass, in "Love Thy Neighbor, a Story of War."

Sorry for the excessive length.

Why?

Here is a mathematical equation, for those who prefer communication to be quantitative.

If: The average pain to fun ratio for most of life is stated as 1:1
Then: The pain to fun ratio for snowboarding = 1000:1

Here's the above statement in a qualitative (superior) way:

Snowboarding hurts real bad.

I hope that next time the ratio gets lower, or (for those who prefer qualitative measurements) that I don't fall on my butt as much as I did today.

Thank you.

Lord, please don't forsake me - in my Mercedes Benz

Tonight, I fell in love with the city of Hamilton. I got to go to the ministry centre and then to Bayfront park with my friends Jaden and Scott. I've never been a city oriented person before, but driving from there to my school, in Ancaster, really made me understand why cities are beautiful.

Outside the ministry centre, people that would generally be classified as "bums" talked about Bible study: "I'm beginning to do Bible study more often at home, and it's beautiful!" "Yes, the LORD is pushing me to start doing Bible study at home. Well, actually He's not pushing me, He's being very gentle..."

The drive through the city is filled with people, lights, restaurants, and general beauty. I don't normally place much stock in feelings, but in the city I simply feel good.

In school, students who would generally be classified as "normal" complain about class. " It makes me sick. No, seriously, I just want to throw up when I think about it. Seriously, it makes me nauseous." (Another annoying thing about people who have too much stuff is that they say the same thing over and over, in an effort to appear superior. Just read any of my papers.)

Ancaster, at least the part where my school is, is ice cold. Houses are hidden and lights are turned off. There are no people in sight. Highway overpasses are concrete tunnels, cold and hard. Students jut out their chests to let the world know that they have enough money to buy Hollister and Abercrombie. No one talks about God on the mountain. Why talk about the One who fills your needs if you have no needs to be filled?

I'm moving downtown. Soon.

Stuff.

Stuff. We all have it, and Christmas in our culture is about it. Everyone reading this probably knows that we need to remember the real reason for Christmas - the coming of Jesus Christ to earth. This event is key for everything. In Him we live and move and have our being. Without the incarnation of Christ, all the promises of God have yet to be fulfilled. Even our history is based around the coming of Christ (B.C., A.D., and even B.C.E. and C.E. refer to the approximate date of His arrival.) However, the fact that Christmas is about Jesus Christ coming to earth does not mean that it's not also about family, gifts, Santa Claus, celebrating material blessings in a way that shows we're thankful, and nephews and nieces that are stoked.

Call me a materialist, it's true.

I'm going to propose that the Christmas season as we know it today reflects the incarnation of our Saviour (Much of this is inspired by Sufjan Stevens' writing in the liner notes of "Songs for Christmas Singalong.") You see, the incarnation was a beautiful thing. It was God reaching down to us on earth to touch us, feel our pain, live under the effects of sin, and to free us! This is truly beautiful for us. But it was not beautiful for Christ. He put His Glory away, wrapped Himself in human skin and human sin, and got dirty. He was a carpenter, with rough hands and tough skin. He was a cat, hanging out with everyone who needed it and knowing what was going on. He didn't mess around though, He could kick the ass of a temple full of greedy merchants who probably did not stand idly by when He started chucking their money around. He also cried, bled, and got scared. He struggled to come to terms with God's will for His life, and in every way He shared our nature. God and man were contained fully, completely, beautifully, and with great ugliness in one entity - the body, soul, and Spirit of Jesus Christ, the God-man. The incarnation at Christmas was bittersweet, something Sufjan describes as "That Creepy Christmas Feeling."

Christmas in our society is also bittersweet. The Christmas season is the setting for more suicides than any other time of the year. Our culture's Christmas, with its box store catalogues, screaming children, annoying music, fake Christmas cheer, rampant materialism, and excessive consumption of alcohol can only be described with one adjective - it sucks. The real reason for Christmas does not suck, but the season itself does suck. The real reason for the incarnation does not suck, but the incarnation did suck.

In our failure to "purify" and "redeem" the Christmas season, I see a beautiful symbol, a description of reality. I am all for remembering the real "reason for the season," but I am opposed to the willful ignorance of the symbol God has created in our culture, the symbol of the combination of beauty and ugliness, perfection and imperfect appearance. This symbol helps me to understand, in however foggy a way, the mystery of the incarnation.


What should we do? What are the real implications of this philosophy of Christmas in our lives?
Earn much
Consume little
Hoard nothing
Give generously
Celebrate life.
(Viv Grigg Companion to the Poor Pg. 95)

The key is the term 'Bittersweet.' Like a stiff rum and eggnog with nutmeg. That's Christmas. I think that it's beautiful, just the way it is.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I'm thankful for Christ, who brings us all together and accepts our praise and our shortcomings, our joy and pain, our beauty and ugliness, our warm fuzzies and our frustation as we follow Him.

With all of my love, Ben

Oh! What a Beautiful View!

Right now I am waking up to Ryan's voice, saying good morning to his family, missing my mom, drinking some grapefruit juice, taking my Vandenhaak vitamins, trying to calm some nerves, sitting on one of the beautiful new couches at Redeemer, looking back at my life, listening to Death Cab, drinking Jones, wondering why it's so hard to pin down feelings, talking to Joy about life, deciding that one of my daughters is going to be named Joy, because joy is an incredible thing. I am preparing for the Day, for class, for the ride home, for band practice, for losing things and finding them, for being a philosophical kid without the degree, and for bed. I'm not worried about school. I am wondering how school can be such a chisel, and how I can be such a block of stone. There are things that I don't care about, and things I do care about. I care about the past and the future. I care about you. I don't care if you don't care about this. In heaven, I'm going to look back at my life like it's a second. I'm going to watch God's videotapes of me running around like an idiot for my whole life. It's going to be incredible, a life in microcosm. I'm going to know the reason for the joy and the frustrations, and it will never feel like I'm beating my head against a wall again.

I wish that we could open our eyes to see in all directions at the same time.

The Great Gatsby

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Like one of those giant elastics that comes on your broccoli.

I'm being stretched. I'm now on Student Senate at Redeemer, the Youth Conference Committee of the Can. Ref. Churches, the leadership team at Emmanuel Youth Group, the Spiritual Activities for Students Committee, and the Student Affairs Committee. Plus I have what feels like a hundred other commitments. Ryan tells me I should do less, I tell him I'm doing more. the best part of the grace of God is that it makes me stretch, like a giant elastic. I hope this elastic doesn't break though.