Second Church Steps

Christmas decorations are up everywhere.  It is now “okay” to have trees, tinsel, and carols up front and center.  These are signs of the times, and a way that we prepare our homes and hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus.   Music is a BIG part of the holidays for me. When I was pregnant with my first child, one Christmas carol could reduce me to tears.  Every time!  I’ve sung it for over half a century.  It is part of my Christmas narrative, and owns me in some way.  It is “Away in a Manger.” Away in a manger, no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the bright sky looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. [i] The part that always got me is the “no crib for his bed.”  He didn’t even have a crib!  What kind of world is it that a baby has to sleep in the dirt? Yes, I was a bit dramatic.  Still…it is a lasting understanding that children should be held and NOT have to sleep in the dirt. They deserve somewhere

“Oh there’s no place like home…” Christmas music could be heard in my house, growing up, the day after Thanksgiving.  This signaled the start of the Advent/Christmas season. You see, Christmas music was forbidden until after Thanksgiving; even today from Texas and Kansas City my children are the enforcers of my mother's rule!  More often than not that first song would have been Perry Como’s   rendition of   Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays…   As Second Presbyterian Church transitions from the theme of “home” into the holiday season—we decorate our Second Home early.  We do this because we are preparing to take the Good News of the Advent/Christmas season out into the world through the Christmas Benevolence church wide program. The  Deacon’s Christmas Benevolence , CB, works with social service agencies to select 140+ families, that's 700+ people, to serve.  The entire church works together to make it possible for these children of God to welcome th

The end of October is a bittersweet time; the candy is sweet and the wind can be bitter cold.  It also is a time of sweet memories that have a bit of a bite!  Growing up as a minister's daughter  my sisters and I LOVED All Saints' Day music...especially, "I sing a song of the saints of God." Perfect people who do no wrong are often called "saints."   I have learned that those are really called, "people I don't know well."  Everyone is imperfect, and that is what makes us the perfect instrument for God's love.  The flaw is ours; the perfection is divine. Saints are messengers; in a world without Snapchat(tm) they are a glimpse of the goodness of the kingdom of God.         And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green... Okay, since our last name was "Green" we really liked that verse-- it was a nice counterpoint to church decoration which was NEVER called "the hanging of the greens&