They played this awesome cover of Radiohead’s Idioteque, and I found a video online that some schmuck with a really shaky hand took. Check it out.

I just started brewing my first jug of kombucha. It should be done in a month, so by President’s Day I’ll be on my way to having a better liver. Yum.

Someone told me the other day that while they were at Starbucks a man in line payed for the person behind him. Christmas is the time of giving, so he must have had the Christmas spirit or something like that. Whatever his reasons were, it was awfully nice of him to pay for a stranger’s cup of coffee. But what was so fascinating about the gift is the way the next person reacted. With a smile and a free mocha, the surprised stranger payed for the man in line behind her. In return, he payed for the woman behind him. The holiday-gift cycle continued on down the line until everyone had payed for a stranger’s cup of coffee.

I liked that story because it reminded me of the Christmas that everybody loves. The one that’s in all the old movies and songs. The one that makes everybody happy and moves everyone to give. The one where Bing Crosby gets the girl and it finally snows. You know what I mean.  I guess its what people call the “Christmas spirit”. That’s sort of a funny phrase. I’m not really sure how a holiday can have a spirit, but I guess that’s just the phrase somebody gave to the feeling you get when you give during the Christmas season. Its celebrating the real Christmas. You know, giving not receiving.

But why do we give on Christmas? Why is it about giving and not receiving? What we’re really celebrating is the birth of Jesus. The real Christmas is about remembering what happened to Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus all those years ago…so what does that have to do with giving?

What did Jesus give on Christmas? He was just born. How much can a newborn baby give? I’m guessing he just sat there. He probably cried, pooped in his swaddling clothes, and did all the other normal stuff that a first century Jewish baby does. I don’t think Jesus really gave anything on Christmas. He saved that for the rest of his life.

When Jesus grew up (after Christmas), he became a homeless rahbi who gave everything. He gave love, food, healing, and even His life. He shook the world so much by his giving that His small group of disciples began to grow larger and larger. This group of Christ-followers were so impacted by Jesus and what He had done, that they started giving. They loved others like Christ loved them, and they continued to give and give while holding on to the hope of His return.

The life of Jesus was marked by His giving. If we’re truly following Him, are lives will be marked by our giving. Not by giving on Christmas, but giving with our lives.

Maybe Christians shouldn’t get the “Christmas spirit.” Maybe we shouldn’t give more on Christmas. I think that if you look at someone who really follows Jesus, the way they spend their time and money during Decemeber won’t really look a whole lot different than it does the rest of the year. The real Christ follower is someone who pays for a stranger’s cup of coffee in the middle of August for no apparent reason. There’s no Christmas spirit in the middle of August. There’s just something weird about that.

1 John 3:16-18

As I sat in a coffee shop, I began to people watch. 

I watched as people ran around throwing money at each other.

I’m not sure where all this money was coming from, but I wanted some. Everybody seemed to be buying stuff that I wanted. Observing the frantic shoppers preparing themselves for the holidays proved to be fun for a while…But then I looked closer.

I saw a weathered old man gauge his eyes out with a credit card, and a young mother puke coins into a bucket. She was so good at it, I would have sworn she had done it before. The way she moved her child out of the way right before a Sacagawea coin hit him in the face was the most impressive thing I had seen all day. The old man wanted a pair of socks, and the young mother wanted a cookbook. I would have rather had the socks. They were wool.

The songs about Santa, Rudolph, and breaking up on Christmas provided a decent soundtrack to the shopping. Sometimes it even looked like people were doing some sort of dance/shop in unison to the music. But then they would do something like yell at each other and the whole groove would be thrown off.

I watched as people ran around throwing money at each other.

When I was leaving the coffee shop, I stepped up to a crosswalk with a group of shoppers and there was someone sitting on the ground. He was probably my age, but alot uglier than me. In fact, he was alot uglier than anyone I had seen all day. He smelled bad, and had horrible hygiene. The sign he was holding had awful grammer, which probably reflected his failure with education. I have no idea who that guy was, but I would say that on top of being ugly, he’s probably lazy, apethetic, and contributing nothing to society. So we all just sat there, avoiding eye contanct with him. When he asked, we all pretended like we couldn’t spare any change. A little reminder that he would most likely spend the money on drugs or booze helped us all feel good about ourselves. After a long, dead silence, the light turned green. Everyone crossed the street and began shopping again.

Christmas began today.

Happy birthday, Jesus.

Harold and Kumar were wrong

Diarrhea hurts

A song ispired by II Kings 2:23-25

A song inspired by Judges 11