Advent Conspiracy Campaign

In contrast to the “Stand for Christmas” campaign, I really appreciate the “Advent Conspiracy” campaign. The four pillars of the latter campaign are to (1) worship fully, (2) spend less, (3) give more, and (4) love all. Those are some principles I can really support. A link to the “Advent Conspiracy” campaign’s website is provided below.

http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

In recent years, particularly as we became parents and we grew in appreciation of the voluntary simplicity movement, my husband and I have done our best in our own little part of the world to reclaim Christmas as a meaningful religious celebration. We have drastically cut the amount we spend on gifts. We have spoken with our relatives and have agreed to not exchange presents among the adults. Instead, we each use funds we might have otherwise spent on gifts to help make the holidays brighter for others. (I deliberately use the term “holidays” in this context because the beneficiaries of our efforts are not necessarily Christ followers who would celebrate Christmas or might celebrate it only as a secular holiday.)

For many years when we still lived in Texas, our extended family pooled our funds to buy gifts for abused children in foster care. (The following link to the Child Advocates website provides information on the Santa’s Wish List program, which is amazing: http://www.childadvocates.org/) Each year, my husband and I took our own daughters shopping with us to help us decide how to use our budgeted funds to get as much on each of our assigned children’s wish list as possible. Even though our daughters were initially toddlers when we began participating in the Santa’s Wish List program, it was a great way to involve our children in the process, to help them understand that not everyone is as fortunate as we are, and to be grateful for our many blessings.

My husband and I also get our kids involved in deciding how to spend certain funds we’ve designated for the Christian anti-poverty charity, World Vision, which has a terrific Christmas catalogue: http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10389
Our daughters have enthusiastically selected mosquito nets, ducks, fishing gear, soccer balls, and other items to gift children in developing nations.

During advent (i.e., the season before Christmas), my husband and I try to emphasize within our own family the religious meaning of Christmas. I’m sure the grandparents think we’re scourges, but we’ve flat out told our daughters that there is no magical man named “Santa Claus” who flies around giving out toys on Christmas Eve. We explain there was once a nice man named St. Nicholas who gave presents to kids whose mommies and daddies did not have a lot of money. Now people dress up as Santa Claus to remember what a good man St. Nicholas was. We are honest with our kids about the Santa Claus myth for a variety of reasons, but a key reason is we want them to know the religious truth about Christmas and not get distracted by the secularization of the holiday.

Our family typically goes to church on Christmas Eve. On Christmas day, we stay home and enjoy each other’s company. In doing so, we deliberately try to down play the role of gifts. We have some for the kids, but we try to emphasize the spiritual reason for the holiday and spending time together as a family. We devote a lot of the day cooking yummy foods and playing games together. But one of the highlights of the day for us is making a homemade birthday cake for Jesus. We decorate the birthday cake with whatever the kids want, e.g., sprinkles, icing, candles, etc. One year they asked how old Jesus was so they would know how many candles to put on the cake. We explained the situation and then we mutually agreed to just put a dozen or so candles on the cake to avoid triggering the smoke detectors. At dinner time, when it is time to bring out the cake, we turn off the lights and illuminate the candles to sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus. Fortunately, Jesus is pretty generous and he lets us eat all of his birthday cake.

Luke 1:46-55

The Magnificat: Mary’s Song of Praise

Mary responded,
“Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Savior! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me. He shows mercy from generation to generation to all who fear him. His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. He has helped his servant Israel and remembered to be merciful. For he made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever.”

Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective Edited & Compiled by Michael Schut

As it was for many people, the period after the 2004 presidential election was not a happy time for me. After four years of disastrous Bush administration leadership, I was incredulous and deeply dispirited that Kerry lost by such a narrow margin. If a Republican draft dodger could beat a decorated Democratic war hero (with a slew of high ranking military brass in his corner), everything seemed hopeless. Our country seemed destined not to veer from its chosen path of dangerous military aggression and misguided economic policies favoring the wealthy but ignoring the rest of our citizenry.

And I was further heartbroken that media pundits were reporting that Christians had tipped the scales for Bush in close races where gay marriage ballot initiatives inspired many to go to the polls. In the popular culture, the notion that Christians were intolerant, mean-spirited bigots was becoming more deeply entrenched, and the true ethos of Christianity was being overshadowed.

As I mourned the results of the election, I turned to my faith. I began to read the Bible on a daily basis--a practice I had always meant to embrace but which I had not previously accomplished for more than a few days at a time. I initially focused on the four books of the New Testament that comprise the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I tried to meditate on what Jesus had tried to teach us and eventually came to have some much needed perspective on the election. I was reminded of basic points: politicians are not always driven by the highest of motivations, they are not always honest, and in a democracy they are limited in what they can achieve. I was not naive and continued to believe that a second Bush-Cheney term brought suffering that might have been avoided with an American regime change in 2004. However, I was also cognizant that a Kerry administration might not have been able to do much better. This time of spiritual growth reminded me that as a Christian I need to be concerned with matters of long-term, lasting importance, and not the results of one election. My ultimate faith rests in God and his truth, not politicians or their promises. Like many, I’m not a particularly patient person, so of course this was not an easy lesson to learn.

During this time, I stopped by a Catholic bookstore near my office one evening after work. I was looking for something encouraging to read, but I was not sure what. I found a book called Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective. It was a compilation of essays by a number of people. None of the authors were familiar to me at that time. The essays were each quite different in style and focus. Many had been originally printed in other publications. As a whole, the book did not always jell. Nonetheless, I was really excited by the concepts in many of the essays. The authors wrote about the spiritual, physical, ecological, and/or economic tolls of our modern consumer culture. In various ways, they advocated a less materialistic lifestyle; based on Christian principles they encouraged an embrace of what some of the authors described as “voluntary simplicity.”

The ideas in this book had a profound impact on me and my family. My husband and I were inspired to read a number of good books on voluntary simplicity, and to embark on a path towards a simpler, happier life. No, we did not sell all our worldly possessions and become Amish. But our family did give away a lot of our belongings, we became more mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards, and we focused more on our relationships with one another and with God. These differences have made such a difference in the quality of our lives. We are very grateful. And in some ways we have George W. Bush and Karl Rove to thank. Indeed, God does work in mysterious ways!

Luke 16:13 (Amplified Bible)
“No servant is able to serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (riches, or anything in which you trust and on which you rely).”

Matthew 19:21-22 (New International Version)
“Jesus answered, ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.”