Dec. 27-Col. 3:12-17
“Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”-Mark Twain “How did people get so unkind?” Stephen Stills-Human Highway Kind is related to kin or child- also sense of how we treat the native people, the people planted there in the natural order sense of how we treat flesh and blood See Gk and Heb for kindness chais chrestotes also goodness useful kindness, fitting, serviceable--chesed (loving kindness)When I quit getting toys or games for Christmas, I started getting more clothes. I have always treasured this baptismal image of clothes in Colossians, For here clothes do make the person-I have long used the book of Common Worship's suggestion to use this passage as the charge to the married couple. Of course they fit everyday, single or married and are oriented to living together in community. I wish to work a bit more with kindness-random acts of kindness v. random acts of violence-planned ones as well
At this time of year, we picture Father time as elderly, and the new year as an infant.I always picture both people who greet Jesus as old. Certainly Anna could be very old. i picture them as kindly, the very embodiment of grandparental kindness. Still they lived in expectancy.Yes, a newness is entering a world. At the same time as Anna and Simeon go offstage, they receive a dream come true. They leave the stage refreshed in the knowledge that an ancient promise has come true; they lived to see it.I always find it painful to see a great athlete hang on a bit too long.
Kenny Rogers sang you decorated my life. the virtues here are seen from the inside out.Living in a Christmas state of mind “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Yet the special celebrations of the Incarnation can support a mindset that continues all year. Because the Godhead put on flesh, his people can clothe themselves with his qualities and do so not just at Christmas. But how? How do you keep the spirit of Christmas alive all year? This passage provides two avenues. That leads to the second avenue for “Christmas kind of living.” To celebrate the coming of God in one’s behavior all year long is a communal event. There are no singulars in this passage; everything is directed to the “y’all” of the congregation. To carry the songs and hymns and odes of the season on into the bleakness of winter and then on into even the dog days of summer takes a critical mass, a body, brought together by the spirit from a variety of backgrounds that can teach and admonish one another to live giving thanks to God always.Amy L.B. Peeler | Every once in a while, you still see a bumper sticker asking us to practice random acts of kindness, instead of violence. Maybe we need a bit of a break from all of the requests. I have concern that we ask too much of people during the holiday season. When it is hard to keep some of the requests straight, we are being overburdened. Yes, I realize that need does not take a holiday.A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.Joseph Joubert Maybe kind acts come with no strings attached? Maybe they should? when a reward for bad misbehavior? I always think of My Fair Lady where Eliza's father makes a plea for the needs of the undeserving poor. For all, deserving and undeserving, the christ child makes a dream reality.
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