trying to convert me to be a happy happy superficial protestant

So Joy gave me a lot of nice stuff (I don't deserve my family here) but also gave me My Daily Bread, one of those booklets that gives a short story lesson of faith for you to read every day.

I filed it in my bookcase. Maybe I'll read it. An example: Today's meditation:

God wanted the shepherds to know that the long-awaited baby had arrived so they could tell others about Jesus’ birth. We still celebrate His birth because His life provides rescue from the brokenness of the world to anyone who believes. We no longer have to wait to know peace and experience joy, which is good news worth announcing!

presto chango.

Yes, instant change of heart. It does occur. But a lot of us wrestle with God and just try to do what we feel in our heart he wants us to do.

I am a bit annoyed with the Hallmark type Christmas movies: oh, they are good escapism, but no one seems to be aware of the reason for the season is a baby born in poverty, of the inverting of the idea of health wealth and self expression into the idea that the meek may not inherit the earth, but that they will inherit heaven.

Joey Velasco painted this modern version of the Nativity: Not in a stable but in the modern equivalent, a parking garage at a junk heap where scavangers live by going through garbage to find what can be recycled.

My life experience is not the same as my middle class Filipino family, or my middle class American relatives.

So I actually got a better meditation from the R rated romantic historical novel Outlander than I did from those books of meditation that my daughter in law tends to give me to read... 

In the last book of the series which I am reading, I ran across a scene when Son in law Roger , who is a minister, is caught in a battle and ponders what he should do: Essentially a meditation of Isaiah Send me Lord. He can only be there for the dying and comfort them.

he ponders: how do I help those knowing they will die? 

 It was one thing to know Christ as God and Savior and all the other capital-letter things that went with that. It was another to realize with shocking clarity that, bar the nails, he knew exactly how Jesus of Nazareth had felt. Alone. Betrayed, terrified, wrenched away from those he loved, and wanting with every atom of one’s being to stay alive. Well, now you know what you’d say to a condemned man .. 

( in this section of the novel, to men who are wounded in battle and facing certain death.)

no, don't look at me: I was usually too busy trying to save a life or render the person pain free to pray with them, but my deeds are a prayer: as the morning offering says: I offer You my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day.

doctors have the privilege of being Christ's hands, and although I am haunted by memories, mainly of mistakes, or bad outcomes that I could do nothing to prevent, nevertheless I was privileged to do this work and that thought gives me comfort in times of despair when I feel I should have done more or should be doing more now (I am retired and semi disable after a bad bout of dengue).

Being a physician is hard work but knowing one is helping does give one a sense of purpose and peace.

this excerpt is where Claire does a difficult delivery of twins and revives the second twin who appeared to be dead:

I’d let him (her husband Jamie who came with her to the delivery) take the baby, at last. Felt his hands on mine as he took her, warm and sure, his face filled with light. He’d knelt carefully and given the baby to Susannah, placing his hand on the child in benediction....   

...   I’d passed clear through exhaustion and out the other side, as one does sometimes in moments of great effort, You know that your bodily energy has been used up, and yet there’s a supernatural sense of mental clarity and a strange capacity to keep moving, but at the same time, you see it all simultaneously, from outside yourself and from your deepest core—the usual intervening layers of flesh and thought have become transparent. “I’m fine,” I said, and I laughed. Let my forehead fall against his chest and breathed for a moment, feeling all my pieces come to rest, whole again, as the enchantment of the last hour faded into peace.

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Family news

Yesterday we went to Manila to pick up Lolo's hearing aid. They had to send it to Singapore to get fixed, and it's been back for two weeks, but this is the first chance we had to drive down.

Now I don't have to shout at him.

It was Chano's birthday, so we celebrated by eating at a fancy Steakhouse...I ordered the Caeser salad (something I can't get here) and Lolo the steak and we shared, but still took home half the steak for us to eat for supper. Lolo rarely eats steak: it's quite expensive, usually imported from Australia or New Zealand. The local beef is either water buffalo or old cow, and has to be soaked, boiled, or pounded to eat.

Luckily the major demonstrations are being held today in Manila, since the hearing aid company's office is around the corner from the Peninsula Hotel where the last coup attempt took place. (the door is now fixed). But few feel that any protest will do anything...partly because the "smoking gun" will never be found, and partly because she'll be out in two years anyway, so why bother...they're all crooks anyway.

Note: This is not my opinion, just what people tell me.

Chano notes GMA is good for business, and supports her.

Family news: Welcome home John

Robin called Chano yesterday and said John has arrived home from Iraq safe and sound.

I'll post photos as soon as she gets around to sending us some.