Advent Thoughts, #15
Because I want to start keeping Sabbath more closely, I will post this Advent Thought a day early. It is only tangentially an advent thought, but a quote from a book that is quoting another book. My secondary source is Upside Down Leadership, by Taylor Field, a phenomenal book that is hard to describe, but one which I should probably read from every day for the rest of my life. He is quoting Albert Schweitzer.
Note: as I get older, my acceptance of less conservative voices (read, fundamentalist) is growing wider. Nouwen, Merton, Bonhoeffer, Buechner, etc. I am the better for it.
"Of all the will toward the ideal in mankind only a small part can manifest itself in public action. All the rest of this force must be content with small and obscure deeds. The sum of these, however, is a thousand times stronger than the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. The latter, compared to the former, are like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean."
I post this as an advent reflection because "he became poor for us." Poor and obscure and a servant. And if we are His, we do the same in spirit, even if sometimes are professional circumstances require us to be public. Christmas is a time of flash and dash, cheesy colored lights, silly Hallmark movies, chasing down deals at the mall, eating too much (or drinking too much), spending time with loved and tolerated family . . . and that's not all bad. But we lose track of the tiny and obscure deeds that make the world and the community of faith possible. The little matters. It all matters, even a smile and kind word and a visit to the invalid. But these things must be daily, weekly, not the week before Christmas and then forgotten.
Note: as I get older, my acceptance of less conservative voices (read, fundamentalist) is growing wider. Nouwen, Merton, Bonhoeffer, Buechner, etc. I am the better for it.
"Of all the will toward the ideal in mankind only a small part can manifest itself in public action. All the rest of this force must be content with small and obscure deeds. The sum of these, however, is a thousand times stronger than the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. The latter, compared to the former, are like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean."
I post this as an advent reflection because "he became poor for us." Poor and obscure and a servant. And if we are His, we do the same in spirit, even if sometimes are professional circumstances require us to be public. Christmas is a time of flash and dash, cheesy colored lights, silly Hallmark movies, chasing down deals at the mall, eating too much (or drinking too much), spending time with loved and tolerated family . . . and that's not all bad. But we lose track of the tiny and obscure deeds that make the world and the community of faith possible. The little matters. It all matters, even a smile and kind word and a visit to the invalid. But these things must be daily, weekly, not the week before Christmas and then forgotten.
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