The Reason for the Season

I continued my Christmas tradition this week of attending the Christmas services of a church besides my own. I love Christmas and the feeling of unity with all of Christendom as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I love the images of Christ, the beautiful music and the sermons and sharing that special spirit of Christmas, even with perfect strangers. There were a couple of things that really stood out to me at the service that I would like to share.

The pastor spoke (of course) about Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, their search for a place to stay and the birth of Jesus Christ in the stable. And then he gave a beautiful metaphor, one of my favorites. From Luke 2: "And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger". A manger, or a feeding trough for animals. One of the most humble places imaginable, and yet perfectly symbolic of the Savior. Jesus himself said (John 6:51) "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." The baby Jesus was laid in the feeding trough, seemingly unfit for the Redeemer of the world, and yet incredibly fitting. He is indeed the Bread of Life; only by partaking of him and his grace can we be saved.


And then were uttered the seven words I never expected to hear at a Christmas service:

Jesus ISN'T the reason for the season.

In all fairness, I didn't completely disagree with what came next. It was just missing the crucial element.

He relayed a story about a British couple in Africa who had adopted a baby hippo and explained how when that hippo grew up, it couldn't be released back into the wild because it had quite literally forgotten how to be a hippo. This part is important. He said that Jesus isn't the reason for the season: We are. He taught that humankind had forgotten how to be hospitable, tolerant, compassionate; in short, human, and that Christ was born to teach us and remind us how to be all those things.

It's clearly not untrue. Christ is our ultimate example for all good things: He teaches us love, compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, charity, hope, and faith. He taught us how to pray, how to fast, how to treat our neighbors. But the prophets taught these qualities and attributes as well (although of course Christ is the perfect example). He was indeed born for us, but not just to teach us how to be hospitable and compassionate. Saying that this is WHY Christ came to the earth ignores his primary purpose. In Mark 8:31, Jesus taught the disciples that "that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." Christ did for us what none of us could do for ourselves. He suffered the pains of hell and died on the cross that each one of us might be able to have eternal life with our Father in Heaven. The Atonement of Christ is the real reason for Christmas. Perhaps this sounds more like Easter than Christmas, but the two are inseparably connected.

I am grateful for this knowledge, that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of the virgin Mary. That He taught us the way to perfection, that He was our exemplar and our elder Brother. But most of all, I am grateful to know that He died for all of us collectively and for me individually, that through his grace I may be forgiven of my sins and that through his mercy I may be succored in all my weaknesses and infirmities.

Happy Christmas.

See you soon.

"Shady Acres today?" I read the note passed to me from Heather, all the way across Hofstetter's physics classroom. I spent most of the lunch periods my senior year running with Heather to Albertson's or the local convenience store / cafe for typical high school food. (It grosses me out thinking about the quantities of tater tots we ate that year. And I wish that were a Napoleon Dynamite reference, but it's not. We probably ate tater tots twice a week.)

As I remember it, my friendship with Heather went back to 10th grade Algebra 2. Mr. Daley's 3rd period class. We suffered through a lot during that class. His hour-long slideshow of his trip to Ireland, accompanied by him on the fiddle (remind me never to do that to my classes). A mandolin accompaniment to "y is equal to x plus or minus the square root of..." whatever the rest of quadratic formula is. We knew a lot of the same people and had all the same classes, and it was fairly natural for us to become friends. By our junior year, we were inseparable: Heather, Amanda and me. Shopping, road-tripping, late-night movie dates with Chuck. Powder puff football, prom, morp and weekly "study sessions" for AP U.S. History that usually turned into pool/dart-throwing contests. Heather was a great friend - smart, witty and always ready to have fun.

Then, about a year and a half after we graduated from high school and went our separate ways, Heather was diagnosed with sarcoma. You all don't need the details of the past four and a half years, except to know that through everything, she remained the happy and spirited and beautiful friend I knew. I'm pretty good at complaining about everything wrong in my life, but I never saw Heather do the same. I have been so blessed to have this wonderful woman (friend, example) in my life and I know she will missed tremendously by all who loved her. I know that Heather has moved on from the pain and trials of this life, but that she is living still in the next, and I know that she will be reunited again with her family and friends. I can't answer the "why" question that I've been asking for the past couple of weeks, but I do know that the Lord has a purpose and that he is watching out for both Heather and for those who are left to mourn her.

http://www.legacy.com/idahostatesman/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=126046508

Love you and miss you, Heather. See you soon.

I'm Going There Someday...

As a child growing up in the LDS church, I've spent most of my life singing "I Love to See the Temple, I'm going there someday." Over Presidents' Day weekend, I decided to make the trek to Boise to finally make that real! I won't say much out of reverence for its sacredness, but it was a beautiful experience and I'm excited to spend more time there!

I also decided that if I was going to fly all the way out to Idaho, that I ought to just make a weekend trip of it, so I headed down to Utah on Saturday (Feb 14) to see some friends. Jessica & Reece picked me up from the airport and took me back to their apartment in the middle of a Utah blizzard to make breakfast and catch up. I've gotten really bad about taking pictures, so you get a lovely one of me and Jess at the Villa della Regina in Torino. Later on that day, I met up with Alicia, Sarah, Spencer and Amanda at the Timpanogos temple. What an incredible place! The rest of the evening / weekend, I spent with some of my favorite people: Damon, Amanda, Amy and Devon. For the first time in a long time, it was actually really hard for me to come back to DC.

I know, short frizzy hair = not a good look for anyone.

Typical. This is what I get for leaving my camera in Alicia's car. =)

Damon & Me.
Leaving my camera in Alicia's car = very few pictures from the weekend.

Amanda & me.
When we were in Boston and then again in Europe a few years ago, everyone thought we were sisters.

Christmas Break highlights!

I love Boise. And as much as I love living on the East Coast, my roots are here. (My mom is really pushing for me to marry someone from Boise so I end up here. :) ) So it's nice to come home for Christmas break / a couple weeks in the summer / whenever else I decide to make the trek. Here are some of the highlights so far:

• Talking to Cody and Paul on Christmas Day!
• Watching my dad and Michael eating the canned silk worm larvae (bundigie) that my missionary brother Paul sent us from Korea.
  
• Playing Rock Band with the Hadfields / hanging out with Damon. (I've missed you!)
  
• Waking Michael up from his Sunday nap. Tonight my mom had gone in his room a couple times to try, but to no avail. Her solution: smear peanut butter on his face and put the dog on his bed to lick it off. Success!
• Reading through some old high school yearbooks and realizing that I can no longer remember about 50% of the people that signed my yearbooks. (Not to mention the other 2000 kids I went to school with!)
• Shopping with Mom. Two very indecisive people = long shopping trips.
  
• Skiing at Bogus Basin. The mountains and skiing are two things that I miss living in DC. Something I do not miss: malfunctioning ski equipment. I need to remember to buy insulated snow pants, gloves without holes in them and boots that actually fit. And maybe I shouldn't use the goggles I got when I was twelve...
• The traditional Chamberlain Sunday afternoon sing-a-long. We all gather around the piano and sing for an hour or two. Les Mis has always been the favorite, but we're working other musicals in to the rotation.
• Mostly just spending time with the people that know and love me best: primarily my family, Amanda, Damon...