Slaughter of Innocents and Non-Compliance with Tyrants

Today is one of those church commemoration days that doesn't get observed in a big way, at least not often.  December 28 is the day when we remember the Holy Innocents, those babies under the age of 2 who lived in Bethlehem, the babies that Herod killed when the wise sages from the east brought news of the arrival of a new ruler, heralded by a new star.  

Some might see it as a strange day in the midst of the Christmas season. Others might see modern corollaries, scared despots who will do anything to maintain their stranglehold on power.  Sadly, we have no shortage of twenty-first century rulers who would slaughter the innocent in their quest to maintain power or gain more.

This morning I'm thinking about the wise sages who inadvertently created this crisis, by visiting Herod and telling him what they saw in the sky.  Herod asks that they come back so that he, too, can go and pay homage.  They are warned in a dream not to go back to Herod.  They return home a different way.  Here's a carving in a European cathedral (Autun Cathedral in France) that depicts the moment of warning:

This morning I am thinking of all the ways that ordinary people can disrupt evil.  There are all sorts of ways of non-compliance.

This train of thought leads me back to a poem I wrote in 2019, a poem with multiple strands: Epiphany, the ongoing debates/actions concerning immigration, the crisis between east and west that ultimately led to the taking down of the wall between East and West Germany, a bit of the underground railroad. Ultimately, this poem arrived, and Sojourners published it in late 2019 or 2020. It fits my mood for today.


Border Lands


I am the border agent who looks
the other way. I am the one
who leaves bottled water in caches
in the harsh border lands I patrol.

I am the one who doesn’t shoot.
I let the people assemble,
with their flickering candles a shimmering
river in the dark. “Let them pray,”
I tell my comrades. “What harm
can come of that?” We holster
our guns, and open a bottle to share.

I am the superior
officer who loses the paperwork
or makes up the statistics.
I am the one who ignores
your e-mails, who cannot be reached
by text or phone, the one
with a full inbox.

When the wise ones
come, as they do, full of dreams,
babbling about the stars
that lead them or messages
from gods or angels,
I open the gates. I don’t alert
the authorities up the road.
Let the kings and emperors
pay for their own intelligence.

I should scan the horizons,
but I tend the garden
I have planted by the shed
where we keep the extra
barbed wires. I grow a variety
of holy trinities: tomatoes, onions,
peppers, beans, squashes of all sorts.
I plant a hedge of sunflowers,
each bright head a north star.

Melanoma Removal Report

I am happy to report that my melanoma removal seems to have gone well.  In fact, in some ways, it couldn't have been much better, if one must have a melanoma that has to be removed by surgery in a hospital.

My melanoma was shallow (.3 mm) but wide, so it couldn't be removed in the office--the amount of anesthetic in an in-office procedure would be toxic.  So off we went to the hospital yesterday morning for our 5:30 a.m. check in.

The check in went quickly, and by check in, I mean the getting ready for surgery, all the stuff that happens before the actual surgery.  There were lots of health questions and meeting the various people who would be part of the surgery.  There was the hooking up of various machines to my body.  It all went fairly quickly, and I had an hour to sit and wait.

I was impressed by all the people who seemed both professional and kind.  I was struck by how many people it takes to do a surgery that's not very complicated.  I was also struck by how many items were thrown away after the surgery.  In a way, of course that's good in terms of so much less possibility for disease.  But wow, this removal cost a lot of money.

It also cost a lot of literal money.  It may end up being more covered by insurance than it seems to be right now.  The cost was just under $7,000, but I paid in advance for a 20% discount.  In the past, when we've had procedures done at the hospital, like my colonoscopy, and then got all the money refunded (I assume when the insurance paid).

When I got the phone call about the cost, I was flabbergasted a bit--the cost was more than the $1700 colonoscopy cost.  The hospital employee on the phone said that it might be priced differently because the colonoscopy was diagnostic, not taking care of a health problem.  It was not the first time that I said out loud, "Our health care system is so broken."

I came home and wrote to everyone who was waiting for an update.  I drank some coffee so that I didn't get a caffeine withdrawal headache, ate some pumpkin roll, and then I decided it was time for a nap.  I slept for several hours, the deep sleep that I rarely get these days.

I woke up and had several bowls of cauliflower cheese soup that I made on Christmas Day.  We watched Shark Tank and a few episodes of NYPD Blue.  I sewed a bit, but a very little bit.  The day had taken it out of me.

But I was relieved overall.  For a procedure which felt a bit more major for being done in a hospital, I was relieved that all went well.

Christmas Morning, Christmas Eve Report, and Sermon Recording

It is Christmas morning, 2025, and through the decades, I've had a wide variety of Christmas mornings.  By choice, I had no children of my own, but I have spent Christmas mornings with little children, and I understand how wonderful it is to have that enchanted kind of morning.  I am also a fan of a leisurely morning, even if it ends up feeling like a regular morning.  I've had Christmas mornings in my own house and Christmas mornings in the houses of relatives, along with the occasional Christmas morning at a vacation property.  I love them all.

This morning, I unwrapped the pumpkin roll that had been waiting for me in the church freezer.  I thought we took home the pumpkin roll intended for us, back in the fall, but there was another, in the upstairs refrigerator.  The woman who baked it assured me that it was mine, and so I brought it home.  It makes a delicious breakfast.

I thought about rolled cakes, about my one attempt to make a Buche de Noel.  It was back in my teenage days, when I subscribed to Bon Appetit magazine and actually attempted to make some of the recipes, if the ingredients were ones I could find in Charlottesville, VA and Knoxville, TN, back in the days (1980's) when grocery stores didn't have the wide range of products that they have now.

It was a tasty enough cake, that long ago Buche de Noel, but we all agreed that it was an awful lot of effort for a cake that tasted like, well, cake.  My pumpkin roll breakfast was also delicious, but it doesn't really taste like regular cake.  It does taste like autumn, so it's a bit out of place on Christmas morning, but since I love both autumn and Christmas, that's fine.

Yesterday was a delightful day which revolved mostly around our trip across the mountain to Bristol, TN, Christmas Eve service, and the trip back.  It was unseasonably warm for December, which I no longer complain about; I took advantage of the warm weather and took a longer walk.

I love the Christmas Eve service; it will always be my favorite.  Everyone is in a good mood, and all the hymns are familiar.  The central message of Christmas is easy to preach, unlike many other texts.

Speaking of sermons, my Christmas Eve sermon was recorded, and you can view it here on my YouTube channel.  If you want to read along (or read instead of watching the recording), I posted the sermon manuscript as a post on my theology blog.

Christmas Eve Morning 2025

It's Christmas Eve, and we will leave to go to Bristol at 2:30.  I don't anticipate heavy holiday traffic, but we'll build in a bit of extra time nonetheless.  I've written my Christmas Eve sermon (go to this post on my theology blog to read it), and I've said some extra prayers for parishioners who are sick.  It looks cold outside, but the thermostat tells me that we're already close to 60 degrees.  We're going to get close to record breaking high temps today and tomorrow.

I've been feeling a bit anxious each day this week, but I don't think it's about Christmas Eve worship.  I think I'm feeling anxious about my surgery on Friday to remove the melanoma on my arm.  I thought I might be feeling anxious about the prep work, particularly making sure I got my pain meds.  But yesterday, I took care of that, and this morning, I'm still a bit anxious.

Yesterday was a day of taking care of all sorts of pre-Christmas tasks.  I went to the library and did a bit of grocery shopping.  My spouse did the bigger grocery shopping, using the mini-grant for the local food pantry.  We had to park in the outer parking lot, but everyone in the grocery store was happy.  I think I got more "Merry Christmas" greetings in one hour than I usually do in a whole season.

I had a container of yogurt that needed to be used up and lots of chicken in the freezer, so I decided to make a paprikash.  I used this recipe, which was surprisingly delicious.  I say surprisingly because I didn't have Hungarian paprika, so I used smoked paprika.  I used yogurt, not sour cream, and it was nonfat yogurt.

Let me go for a walk--maybe movement will help me with my tug of anxiety.

Advent Labyrinth and Dreams of Deans and Fiber Liturgies

A few items that I want to record so that they don't slip away:

--Because this blog is a repository of ideas that I may or may not use in the future, I wanted to record this picture that a Facebook friend posted; I edited it so that a child is not part of the picture.  It's an Advent labyrinth from an Advent Quiet Day at a local Episcopal church:

It would be a very easy labyrinth to set up, if one had enough greenery--it's a big spiral with candles throughout.

The person who posted the picture talked about this labyrinth in the context of a church that offered an Advent experience in mid-December, with the above labyrinth, and some interactive stations in Sunday School classrooms, like a "praying in color" station, which looked like coloring sheets.

It seems like the kind of idea that has a lot of potential.  But I do wonder if it would work at a smaller place, a country church like the kind where I am now.  December is a busy month after all.

But I wanted to record it.  I wonder if a Spring event has potential.  A Lenten Labyrinth experience?

--Last week I had a vivid dream.  I was pastor of a church, and I had created some sort of weekly worship based around quilting and other fabric arts.  It was a worship service, not a craft time.  

It had a catchy name, like the Mimosa Mass that I created for my idea of a worship service that combines liturgy and an actual brunch.  Unfortunately, I can't remember the catchy name that my dream self came up with.  I want to think it started with an F.

I also don't remember any details about worship.  But I remember that I was having a conversation with fellow pastors and Synod folks about the worship and what a surprise it was that it continued to be so filled with seekers who went on to become members.

--Yesterday, Wesley Theological Seminary, my seminary where I earned my MDiv, announced that Dr. Carla Works would be the new president.  I never took a class with her, but I never heard anything but wonderful things about her teaching.  I had a few brief encounters with her when I lived on campus, back before she was appointed dean.  She became dean in the summer of 2023, and now, in the summer of 2026, she'll be president.

I immediately wondered who would be dean.  Will they hire from within?  Will any of the faculty be interested in this kind of promotion?

My spouse and I had a bit of interesting conversation about being a dean of a seminary, about whether or not I'd say yes if they called and offered me the job.  I am not remotely qualified, so my first thought was no, I wouldn't say yes.  Then I thought about how many people in my work life have been in charge, and they weren't qualified and they didn't realize it or they thought they could rise to the occasion.  Of course, that's hardly a ringing endorsement--so many of those people blundered ahead and hoped for the best, and maybe it would have been a disaster regardless.

I am always happy (SO HAPPY) to be out of administration, so it was intriguing to me to realize that if Wesley called me with an offer, I wouldn't say no right away.

Christmas Pageants, Modern and Medieval

Yesterday's sermon about Joseph had a bit of pondering about Christmas pageants.  I began by thinking about the traditional Christmas pageant, where the starring role is Mary, while the rambunctious boys get cast as farm animals.  Yesterday's sermon was about Joseph, the part of the story that we rarely see in Christmas pageants:  Joseph who has one future mapped out, only to find out that his betrothed is pregnant with someone else's baby.

No, not pageant material--as I wrote in the sermon:  "it would make me deeply uncomfortable to see elementary school kids acting out today’s Gospel. But as an adult, I find this part of the Nativity story may have more to say to us in our non-Christmas lives than the rest of the incarnation story."

Here's what I posted on Facebook:  "If you are feeling a bit like Joseph, feeling like you had solid plans that have dissolved into a huge mess, perhaps my sermon that I preached this morning at Faith Lutheran Church (in Bristol, TN) would have meaning for you."

You can find the recording of my sermon here on my YouTube channel.  You can read along here and count the times I go off-script.

As I was preaching, I was thinking of a poem that I wrote, about being part of the angel choir and not realizing how much more powerful an angel would be than Mary.  I wrote it a long time ago, and my theology around Mary has changed.  I now see her as much more powerful.  But still, I wanted to revisit the poem, and I'm happy that my blog makes it much easier than digging through computer files, trying to remember the name of the poem.

It was first published in The South Carolina Review, and then I included it in my first chapbook, Whistling Past the Graveyard.  It does make me wonder if people even have Christmas pageants anymore.  My church has not in the time that I've been there, although they once did.  We just don't have enough children to do a pageant.

If we had a pageant, I'd try to make it different than the ones I was part of as a child.  I'm not sure how I would do that, so I'm glad I haven't been forced to come up with a plan.  But I wouldn't want today's children to have the experience I had and try to capture in this poem:

Medieval Christmas Pageants


The Sunday School pageant director embraced
the medieval ideals. Mary would have dark
hair and a pure soul. Joseph, a mousy
man who knew how to fade into the background.
Every angel must be haloed with golden
hair, and I, the greatest girl, the head
angel, standing shoulders above the others.

It could have been worse. Ugly and unruly
children had to slide into the heads and tails
of other creatures, subdued by the weight
of their costumes, while I got to lead
the processional. But I, unworldly foolish,
longed to be Mary. I cursed
my blond hair, my Slavic looks which damned
me to the realm of the angels.

I didn’t see Mary’s role for what it was: bit
player, vessel for the holy, keeper of the cosmic.
I didn’t understand the power of my position.
I could have led an angel uprising, although the history
of angel uprisings suggests that though whole new
worlds emerge, so do new tortures with the triumph.
I could have imparted messages of God’s plan,
spoiled all the surprises. I could just appear,
scaring mere mortals into submission.

Instead, I smoldered, smarting
at the indignities of mother-made wings
and long robes to ruin my long legged run.
I internalized the message of the culture
which didn’t offer starring roles for girls,
no head angel power for us.
Instead, the slender, the meek, the submissive
girl got the prize, the spotlight focused
on her kneeling knees, her bowed head.
I tried not to sing too loudly, to shrink
my Teutonic bones into the Mary model.

Winter Solstice Fragments

Let me take a moment and record a few bits and pieces from the past few days.

--This morning, I had my eye on the Amazon delivery schedule, which I almost never do, and I noticed that the tracker on the map was in the shape of a sleigh.  It made me smile.

--I was tracking some new fabric scissors.  I used my fabric scissors over Thanksgiving to cut Steam-a-Seam, and I won't be doing that again.  My scissors were a bit duller, and then my spouse tried to sharpen them the way one does knives.  Now the old fabric scissors don't cut at all.  I have a pair of 50 year old fabric scissors, which also aren't as sharp as I'd like, and a rotary cutter that also is not as sharp as it needs to be.  Yesterday I thought, this is ridiculous and ordered more scissors.

--I have not been doing a great job going for a daily walk.  I have managed to walk 2-3 times a week, which once upon a time (50 years ago) would have been the recommended amount.  I will get back on track in the new year.

--We watched A Muppet Christmas Movie, which is different than A Muppet Christmas Carol.  I like A Muppet Christmas Movie better--lots of funny allusions to all sorts of Christmas movies and themes.

--When I look back on this winter break, I want to remember that I did a lot of sewing, a lot of reconnecting with friends, a lot of reading of real books!  I didn't do as much walking or writing, but that's O.K.

--Today is the winter solstice.  After today, more light!