'Tis the Season

'Tis the Season for Illness

In the days right before final exams, I was conquered by a cold bug. When you have to know pretty much everything about Christian thought and culture to the year 1500, you don't want to be sneezing and blowing your nose. But I survived and hopefully I fared well on the exams.

I spent last weekend in Calgary with my cousin Shandi and her tiny toddler Sebastian. He has everyone wrapped around his finger and he knows it. I just can't help it - I love him so much. Unfortunately, Sebastian was sick.

Sebastian's dad is Filippino so on Sunday, Shandi and I went to a Christmas party for the culture society of the Pangasinan province of the Philippines. Shandi and I stuck out a little because we are not Filippino. I felt a little more conspicuous since I am not part of their closeknit community. We were listening to overly loud Christmas music, looking in curiousity at the half dozen clowns making balloon animals and eating cold hot dogs, when Sebastian threw up. So we went home.

Baby brother Grant picked me up and took me to the Hat. When I arrived, I found out that Sebastian was learning to share. In fact, he had shared his illness with me. Isn't giving what the holidays are all about?

'Tis the Season for Coming Home

I feel like a little kid again as I anticipate my second post-Taiwan Christmas. Advent has been an extra long season for me this year. I've been attending Christmas parties since the start of December and practicing Christmas carols with a choir since mid-November. For the last month in my Greek class, we've been translating Matthew 1 and Luke 1,2. I have been immersed in Christmas. I have been overwhelmed by the Incarnation.

This is year will be the first Christmas away from home for an Australian friend of mine at Regent. He shared with me an interesting thought on Christmas. We think of family and coming home, but in way, that's the opposite of what happened that first Christmas.

Jesus didn't come home; he left. He came to earth. He left his father. He took on skin. Even Mary and Joseph were away from home; they weren't in Nazareth and they had no place to stay. Christmas stunk of animals not cinnamon and evergreen branches. It wasn't comfortable and it wasn't home.

Home on the prairies, I don't want to think about exile and foreignness. I'm too busy enjoying family and home, a sense of belonging. Images of the last few days of homecoming run through my mind. Shandi and I laughing at Mike's bedhead. Sebastian's pitiful face before he blew chunks. Nana's bright smile with her new teeth. Poppa's hugs that always smart a little because of the pens in his shirt pocket. Grant wearing a mid-80s brown pinstripe suit to a hockey game. Gregg almost plowing into a herd of deer on our way home from that same hockey game. The parents happy faces because all their children will be home. Grandma Irene delivering the mail. Silly small things. But this is home.

Augustine of Hippo said, "Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you." Maybe we could say "they are homeless until they find their home in you." The Incarnation makes it possible for us to find our true home, our home in God.