Human, A Christmas Carol
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: The Scoreboard
- A Single Tree
- Worb, Switzerland in Fall
- The Volto Santo
- Tuscany, Italy
- The Prayer of Music
- Cologne Cathedral
- Pope Francis, Family, and Joy
- Exaltation of the Cross
- The Crumbs of Holiness
- Brienzer Rothorn
- Paris
- Prayer
- School, Dependence, and Paradox
- Pride
- Reflecting Light
- Loving Plan
- The Emmental
- Paris, Death, and Uncertainty
- Mt. Pilatus
- The Corner of Church and Gay
- Good Parenting
- To Change or Not To Change
- One Year Later
- Blausee, Switzerland
- Time is Love
- Bern, Switzerland
- Mürren, Switzerland
- Happy Thursday
- Die Hausmann (The Houseman)
- The Call of a Father
- Kandersteg, Switzerland
- Hope and Home
- Human, A Christmas Carol
- The Mountains and the Divine
- Christmas Market
- A Stare
- Penetrating Light
- Venice, Italy
- The Passion and the WC
- The Mountain
- Resurrection
- Market Day in Bern, Switzerland
- Happy Easter
- Good Friday
- Maundy Thursday
- Holy Week Reflection
- The Great Adventure
- A Man and His Crocs
- “Say You, Say Me”
- Kids, a Ball, and Nature
- Thun, Switzerland
- Invitation
- Sports and Passion
- Sunrise-Worb, Switzerland
- Seeing the Beautiful
- Our First Month
- Summer at Seven
- I Believe
- Radiant Presence
- Family
- U.S.A. vs. Germany
- Our Swiss Weekend
- The Paradox of the Road
- The Adventure Continues…
- Happy Father’s Day?
- Celebrating Earth Day
- Interlaken, Switzerland
- My Search for Communion
- The Universal Language of Sports
- An Experienced Faith
- Worb, Switzerland
- Lake Lugano, Switzerland
- To Bless the Space Between
- Language of Love
- The Bridge
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: The Parent Zone
- A Fire of Hope
- Eyes Without a Face
- Modern-Day School Day
- 43
- A Moment in Time
- A Hidden Truth
- Now More Than Ever, We Need the Wisdom of Sports
- A Plea for Truth
- “Shining Like The Sun”
- Gift of Silence
- The Greatest Illusion
- A Stomping Joy
- Listening to Time
- A Beautiful Closure
- Perfectly Average
- Baseball, Friendship, and Bathroom Prophecy
- Moments in Time: Worb, Switzerland
- Moments in Time: Helena, MT
- Mystery and Mirrors
- Present
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: Sports Wounds
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: Sports Balance
- 45 and the Mid-Life Brisk Walk
- A Scandalous Christmas
- Fire
- Moments in Time: London (The Tube)
- Some Random Thoughts at 44
- Hard To Be Human
- Two Choices
- Coming Out of Hibernation
- The Whispers of Nature
- Facebook, Beauty, and Good Friday
- Moments in Time: Dingle, Ireland
- Let’s Dance
- Moments in Time: Glen Coe, Scotland (Highlands)
- Age of Wisdom
- Happy New Year…Cheers to Cranberry Juice and Coffee
- Stockhorn
- The Story of Paris
- Solothurn, Switzerland
- Tissot Peak Walk, Glacier 3000
- Man vs. Nature
- The Swiss Alps from Another Time
- Not Just Another Day
- The Image
- Buildings
- Domodossola, Italy
- The Gray
- Feeling the Falls
- Love Is
- Opposites
- Sunrise Over Lake Maggiore, Italy
- Weather, Writing, and Truth
- A “Religious” Walk Home
- A Quick Day Trip to Luzern, Switzerland
- Year Two
- The Castle on the Hill
- Cold as Stone (3 Years Later)
- Change
- Yes, I Am In Your Business
- “Uniquely Me”
- The Human Balance
- Beyond Croatia’s Beauty
- Back to Reality
- A Friend to Man
- Merry Christmas
- Finding Freedom
- High School Sports Hall of Fame
- Bonnie Scotland
- Turning the Big 4-0
- Nice, France
- Wrestling with Time
- Rounding Second Base
- A New Hang Out
- Welcome to a Journey…
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: The Parent Zone
- A Single Tree
- Worb, Switzerland in Fall
- The Volto Santo
- Tuscany, Italy
- The Prayer of Music
- Cologne Cathedral
- Pope Francis, Family, and Joy
- Exaltation of the Cross
- The Crumbs of Holiness
- Brienzer Rothorn
- Paris
- Prayer
- School, Dependence, and Paradox
- Pride
- Reflecting Light
- Loving Plan
- The Emmental
- Paris, Death, and Uncertainty
- Mt. Pilatus
- The Corner of Church and Gay
- Good Parenting
- To Change or Not To Change
- One Year Later
- Blausee, Switzerland
- Time is Love
- Bern, Switzerland
- Mürren, Switzerland
- Happy Thursday
- Die Hausmann (The Houseman)
- The Call of a Father
- Kandersteg, Switzerland
- Hope and Home
- Human, A Christmas Carol
- The Mountains and the Divine
- Christmas Market
- A Stare
- Penetrating Light
- Venice, Italy
- The Passion and the WC
- The Mountain
- Resurrection
- Market Day in Bern, Switzerland
- Happy Easter
- Good Friday
- Maundy Thursday
- Holy Week Reflection
- The Great Adventure
- A Man and His Crocs
- “Say You, Say Me”
- Kids, a Ball, and Nature
- Thun, Switzerland
- Invitation
- Sports and Passion
- Sunrise-Worb, Switzerland
- Seeing the Beautiful
- Our First Month
- Summer at Seven
- I Believe
- Radiant Presence
- Family
- U.S.A. vs. Germany
- Our Swiss Weekend
- The Paradox of the Road
- The Adventure Continues…
- Happy Father’s Day?
- Celebrating Earth Day
- Interlaken, Switzerland
- My Search for Communion
- The Universal Language of Sports
- An Experienced Faith
- Worb, Switzerland
- Lake Lugano, Switzerland
- To Bless the Space Between
- Language of Love
- The Bridge
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: Sports Wounds
- A Plea for Truth
- Modern-Day School Day
- 43
- A Moment in Time
- A Hidden Truth
- Now More Than Ever, We Need the Wisdom of Sports
- A Fire of Hope
- Gift of Silence
- Moments in Time: Worb, Switzerland
- The Greatest Illusion
- A Stomping Joy
- Listening to Time
- A Beautiful Closure
- Perfectly Average
- Baseball, Friendship, and Bathroom Prophecy
- Age of Wisdom
- Eyes Without a Face
- “Shining Like The Sun”
- Happy New Year…Cheers to Cranberry Juice and Coffee
- Some Random Thoughts at 44
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: Sports Balance
- 45 and the Mid-Life Brisk Walk
- A Scandalous Christmas
- Fire
- Moments in Time: London (The Tube)
- Present
- Two Choices
- Moments in Time: Helena, MT
- Coming Out of Hibernation
- The Whispers of Nature
- Facebook, Beauty, and Good Friday
- Moments in Time: Dingle, Ireland
- Let’s Dance
- Moments in Time: Glen Coe, Scotland (Highlands)
- Hard To Be Human
- Mystery and Mirrors
- The Castle on the Hill
- Stockhorn
- The Story of Paris
- Solothurn, Switzerland
- Tissot Peak Walk, Glacier 3000
- Man vs. Nature
- The Swiss Alps from Another Time
- Not Just Another Day
- The Image
- Buildings
- Domodossola, Italy
- The Gray
- Feeling the Falls
- Love Is
- Opposites
- Sunrise Over Lake Maggiore, Italy
- Weather, Writing, and Truth
- A “Religious” Walk Home
- A Quick Day Trip to Luzern, Switzerland
- Year Two
- Change
- Cold as Stone (3 Years Later)
- Yes, I Am In Your Business
- “Uniquely Me”
- The Human Balance
- Beyond Croatia’s Beauty
- Back to Reality
- A Friend to Man
- Merry Christmas
- Finding Freedom
- High School Sports Hall of Fame
- Bonnie Scotland
- Turning the Big 4-0
- Nice, France
- Wrestling with Time
- Rounding Second Base
- A New Hang Out
- Welcome to a Journey…
Last week while driving home from dropping the kids off at school, I heard the first Christmas carol of the season. Well, sort of. It was an accident, and it wasn’t necessarily a Christmas carol by nature. Because Switzerland does not inundate their radio stations and stores with traditional Christmas songs weeks before Christmas, Human by the Human League, at least on one level, served to be the first one I heard all season.
Now before you think I have been drinking too much Gluhwein, let me try to explain. I admit that I am an 80’s freak, so anything from the 1980s is ranked high on my list. The music, the movies always put me in my happy place. Ok, maybe not the mullet, but just put on Rocky IV or Teen Wolf, and I am in heaven.
More so, the ’80s for me was a time in my life as a young boy that I felt both comfortable and safe in my surroundings while being introduced into the adventure of exploration and discovery. It was a time when I spent the days exploring the woods near my house and riding my bike around the neighborhood on “secret missions,” all the while having a safe home to come back to when I was finished. It was a time in my life when comfort and being uncomfortable were both present and in balance.
Last week for the first time since we moved to Switzerland, the feeling of being uncomfortable was starting to wear on my psyche. For the first month or so into the move, the feeling of being uncomfortable is overbearing, but the excitement of adventure gets you through it. Then after a few months, you begin to feel comfortable with being uncomfortable. But last week, the language barrier and the immersion into a different culture that make the trips to the grocery store, ordering food, driving on the roads, all while trying to make your kids feel safe, hit me hard. The presence of my family in our home and the great people within the school community who are also experiencing the same struggles helped me feel comfortable during this time. The balance remained.
It seems that within this balance, which is the harmony between safety and adventure, we experience our lives more fully. Consequently, it would also seem that when our lives become unbalanced, we experience either too much safety or too much adventure that we begin to lose ourselves.
Maybe this is the reason why the song Human hit home last week. It made me think about a period in my life, the 80’s, when I learned some characteristics of being human, which I once again was experiencing every day in Switzerland. And maybe this is also why the song became sort of a Christmas carol.
When we celebrate perhaps the greatest mystery that there is, God, becoming human, we praise God for breaking into time and space during this season. We celebrate God becoming one of us to show us what it means to be fully human. Therefore in the very person of Jesus, we are invited into the ultimate safety zone while at the same time propelling us into the journey of truth, which can be very uncomfortable at times. Our faith in Jesus becomes the avenue to experience the balance of being human; thus, the reason the 80’s song struck me so much.
Yet, on the other hand, the song does have a flaw.
When you listen to the song, it hones in on the notion that being human means being imperfect. That is, to be human is to be “born to make mistakes.” Although making mistakes is part of life, maybe it isn’t a prerequisite of being human the way we like to use it. Maybe there is a difference between mistakes and sins that this song refers to.
Mary, the Mother of God, is called full of grace by the angel Gabriel. In our theology, we view Mary as sinless. Therefore she is fully human. We also view Jesus in His humanity as the One who has never sinned, therefore also fully human. Now does this mean that Jesus never spilled the milk as my pastor would often say…probably not. Does this mean that Mary never forgot anything or made mistakes in her life…no. This suggests that making mistakes is one thing yet sinning is to be inhuman, not human. For it degrades the very essence and dignity of ourselves and others.
As a result, the challenge for all of us is to be perfect. To become human, just as Jesus did on Christmas morning. And it is within this journey of becoming fully human that the comfort of mercy for the times that we are inhuman gives us the courage to face the road ahead of us. Thus the balance is created.
Staying in my childhood home in Pennsylvania for Christmas certainly gives me a great sense of safety and comfort. Yet we leave again in one week, back to the great adventure of living in Switzerland. Therefore, this year when I look to the “baby wrapped in swaddling clothes,” I can’t help but to also see Him as the One who will sweat blood in the garden before being crowned Lord on the cross. And it is here that I feel safe and dare to enter into the unknown and times of feeling uncomfortable.
A friend of mine last week sent me a video about A Charlie Brown Christmas. We have all seen the story and know the characters. Linus can never seem to put down his blanket throughout the Peanuts narratives. It serves as a source of comfort, so much so that he is often ridiculed by Snoopy, Sally, and Lucy. That is until he recites what Christmas is all about. And it is here that he drops his “safety blanket” and finds both comfort and courage.
Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones…and may we all find what it means to be fully human this year.