Christmas past, present and future

Christmas was always great around our place. My folks were borderline poor, but you would have never known, because they did not talk about it, and were great planners. I have such great memories of Christmas as a kid.

Once I was a teenager and on through college, Christmas was still great, but I also worked a ton of hours, pulling double shifts and occasionally triple shifts, because I could and because the pay was so much better - no one else would work the Christmas shifts. But I still remember getting with the parentals and the larger family, to eat, drink and be merry together.

Then as a married adult, leading a church, Christmas was usually about work, the four Sundays of Advent, the new one time visitors, this were my least favorite memories of Christmas. When the kids came along, Christmas became the richest ever, watching their joy and excitement each year. And the anticipation was soooooo sweet. My kids will tell you, I Loooovvveeee Christmas.

The poorest Christmas ever - when Heidi, our oldest, was not even one year old, I was in Seminary and the only gift I could buy was a cheap doll for Heidi, nothing for Brenda, nothing for me. Heidi being five months old did not appreciate what that doll cost me. And the most I can ever remember us spending at Christmas was about 10 grand, when we flew home from Macedonia, all five of us, and spent three weeks traveling and visiting everyone. But they were all great, the poor ones and the rich ones.

And this one today, just my dad and me together, brother is gone and mom is gone, and Brenda is waiting for me in Macedonia (will leave tomorrow to get to her), but it is precious in its own way, because who knows how many more I get before its just me? Gratitude and wonder and excitement that Emmanuel is with us, and that He gave us the magnificent opportunities to give and give to others throughout our lives.

The chain of reasoning

The chain of reasoning

This is the thing we call thinking, or more accurately, like to think of as thinking. It is how you get from A to B mentally you surmise and you would be partially correct, in the sense that it can (and sometimes does) happen that way. But as Alan Jacobs shows in his book "How to Think" this is much more frequently an emotional movement than and mental movement. Even (mostly?) the highly educated folks like myself, we think according to how we feel, far far more than we "think" according to thinking - or a chain of reasoning, though I would imagine that most would resist the suggestion than they are following their feelings more than a chain of reasoning.

Jacobs points out situation after situation where we "decide" or "think" what is socially or culturally acceptable, with no real chain of reasoning at play in any discernible measure. When I step back and privately take a hard look at my "thinking" I can see what he is saying. (Privately being an important at part of this, because it is only then that you might be your most brutally honest with yourself.)

Or you might find this little pointer from Dan Rockwell enlightening:
"1. Assume the worst. Find the worst.
2. Look for problems. Find difficulties and obstacles.
3. Look for progress. Find gratitude. (The benefits of gratitude make it a magic elixir for health and happiness.)
4. Search for opportunities. Find energy.
You find what you look for. Then you justify your findings."

See there is no chain of reasoning here, just finding what we look for, and then we justify what we found, haha! I kid you not, but two months ago, I would have said that you were full of weirdness if you had suggested what I am suggesting (or rather what Jacobs is suggesting and I am just whole hardily agreeing with) here. But it is inescapably true. 

I was recently mediating a conflict between a leadership couple, and their board. I was doing this largely as a favor to a friend, because this is not normally my kind of gig. So I listened to what the leadership couple was telling me about how terrible the board was, how impossible to work with they were, how they were sabotaging all the great work that the leadership couple was inspiring the organization to accomplish.

However! I should have ended that meeting within the first 5 minutes, when it became abundantly clear, that the leadership couple were the psycho's in the room, not the board members. The board members were desperate to actually accomplish something important. The leadership couple were looking for wholesale capitulation! They had/have zero capacity for anyone to disagree with them ever!! You find what you look for and then justify what you found. It worked precisely like that from beginning to end for this leadership couple.

Now I am trying to isolate any such patterns and "feelings" in myself and see the ways that I am sure I am feeling my thinking forward, rather than following any chain of reasoning.