The True Story of the Birth of Jesus Christ

Were I to introduce a Christmas sermon with this outstanding video, there is no question that I'd be rocking many a Christian's romantic Christmas sensibilities. However, it should be shown in churches all over for several reasons:

1. It's hilarious! The more I see it, the funnier it becomes. Watch it more than once. You'll see what I mean.

2. Someone finally had the creativity, the guts (pun intended) and the knowledge of what births entail to put this together. Granted, the video producer/director took some liberties with the Nativity story in terms of the chronology of events, but this is real in spite of a very comical protrayal. This baby Jesus I can identify with!

3. What is best as far as I'm concerned, the video is theologically solid! The point of Christmas is that God became human. In other words, He became *flesh*. A pretty scandalous Christian claim, mind you. But not only is the Incarnation the Christian claim par excellence, the virgin birth was a bloody mess. Like all births, a beautiful, but bloody mess. I mean, who would have thought of putting the placenta as a character in the Nativity story? A genius probably or a Christian Ob/Gyn with some video making chops! Maybe it was just a mom who's thought about this particular birth for a bit and about what Mary must have felt or gone through. Moms know what it's like.

4. The cast, oh my! The pianist deserves an honorable mention for his enthusiasm! The best outstanding couple, Mary "You did this to me!" and Joseph "No, I didn't. He did!" What's not to like! And my favorite, Melchior "Now we cut the umbilical cord of our Lord and Savior." Said with such charm and naturalness!

Yes, amigos, it's that simple and yet, so extraordinary! It's Christmas. It's the Incarnation. And it's all good 'cause it's all Good News!

Love Warrior: A Review

My review of Love Warrior by
Glennon Doyle Melton

This past November I read the book Love Warrior, a memoir by author Glennon Doyle Melton. I was so impressed with her story that I decided to give it a second read. Halfway through this second reading, I learned online that the author had recently divorced her husband and was now dating soccer superstar Amy Wambach. I was saddened to hear the news. I cannot pretend to know what ultimately happened or led her to that decision. I can only take a guess.

I say I was saddened because one of the most important episodes in Melton’s book is the courageous story she narrates about how she and her husband did everything they could to save their marriage after struggling with their respective addictions and embarking on the path to recovery. By the grace of God, they literally pulled their relationship back from the dead and it seemed by the end of the book that the worst chapter of their life together had been, against all odds, almost completely overcome. That second half of my second reading of the book felt different for several reasons, but that fact doesn’t take away from the impactful story of the Love Warrior.

Melton’s story will threaten the reader in a good way. She appropriately begins her story with a quote by 13th century Muslim poet Rumi, “You’ve seen my descent. Now watch my rising.” From that moment on the author goes on a relentless and unashamed journey of redemption that takes us from painful deep valleys while making repeated and necessary stops at the wells of grace and on to peaks of surrender and restoration.

Melton seems to have a natural ability to connect with her readers effortlessly. Her words and images, her story, her experiences are painfully real. She doesn’t spare us the good, the bad and the ugly. Rather, she dishes them for us in all their blunt realness. When I finished reading the book the first time around, I thought to myself, “This woman has an extraordinary brand of courage.” Her vulnerability is brutal and leaps off the page in such a way that you can almost grasp it. If there was a book that would let you read or, better yet ,see the author’s soul, this would be it.

There is a chapter in which the author finds herself at one of her lowest moments and she goes to see a priest. The conversation between them has an eviscerating effect. It is without a shred of exaggeration one of the saddest encounters ever written about. The Virgin Mary also plays an important role in the Love Warrior. The author’s reflections on Mary are powerful and insightful.

In Love Warrior you will read the real story of a broken woman and the broken man who loves her, and in sharing it, Melton lets you find out that her story is also the story of broken people at large and the perfect God who loves each one of them unconditionally. You will find out that the book is about parenthood, but also about friendship. Love Warrior is about need and longing, but also about how to quench them. It is about addiction and the road to recovery. The story will threaten you with its intimacy and will challenge you to consider, evaluate and cherish your most precious relationships. It places logistics under connection and puts meaningfulness over superficiality.

Melton has drawn a huge following among women readers. It is after all a gal telling her story, which deeply resonates with other gals. At face value, it might seem easy for guys to dismiss this book. But interestingly, Love Warrior is also a story for men. That’s one of the great things about the book and it will take guys by surprise. In telling us about her past relationships, she deals superbly with the unavoidable question of the meaning of manhood. What makes a man? Who decides that? The author doesn’t get into sociological diatribes. She instead skillfully deconstructs our cultural perception of manhood and the toxicity that it impinges upon both men and women alike from very early on in life. She cuts right thru it like a hot knife cuts through butter. Hers is not a feminist indictment against men, but a critique of what we socially encourage and promote as accepted norms for men.

Melton doesn’t hide from us the ugly struggle with addiction that her husband deals with and that almost brought them to the point of no return. And in her story, he doesn’t hide his fear of losing the woman he imperfectly loves. He doesn’t take the easy way out. He decides to go the way of the Love Warrior and learns little by little, and with a lot of help, how to love his woman the way she must be loved. If you’re a guy reading this and decide to give the Love Warrior a try, you’ll be in for a pretty good lesson, one worth having.

Finally, Love Warrior will let you in on the triumph of grace and love. Yes, those gifts without which there are no stories to tell, no redemption to speak of and no forgiveness to give and to receive. There’s a phrase Melton uses a few times in her story as her surrender takes her to embrace the fact that the path to recovery is impossible without reliance on God’s love and the love of others, “I was born for this.” It sounds like a self-help mantra, a sort of mind-over-matter axiom, and there's a degree of that in her memoir, but Melton does not fool herself and us. We were made for this love that we cannot receive on our own because it’s a gift of heavenly grace.

La locura armada de los Estados Unidos de América

Dos Votos para la Historia y una Paz para Colombia

El domingo, 2 de octubre del 2016 fue un día muy triste para el mundo, pero en particular para Colombia. El plebiscito que ratificaría el Acuerdo de Paz entre el gobierno colombiano y las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército Popular (FARC-EP) sería rechazado por los votantes por una diferencia de medio punto (.5) entre el no y el sí. Luego de cuatro años de ardua negociación entre las partes en La Habana, Cuba, el referendo terminó en un aparente callejón sin salida. Fue una gran sorpresa y un duro golpe para todos los que seguimos con interés el proceso y anhelamos de corazón la paz para Colombia. No fue menos duro para millones de colombianos que habiendo podido no salieron a votar ese día. Las FARC y el gobierno de Colombia llevaban más de medio siglo enfrascados en una guerra que según los mejores estimados ha desplazado a más de 7 millones de personas y matado a sobre 225,000.

El Presidente Juan Manuel Santos había declarado de cara al plebiscito que no había “Plan B” de fracasar la votación. Irónicamente, el Presidente Santos obtuvo el Premio Nobel de la Paz este año a sólo unos días luego de la derrota del plebiscito por la paz en su país. De hecho, esto sirvió como un mayor incentivo para redoblar los esfuerzos por la paz y renegociar el acuerdo ya pactado en septiembre con mayor ímpetu.

La semana pasada, el jueves 24 de noviembre para ser exacto, el gobierno colombiano y las FARC nuevamente se reunieron para concretar, con las firmas del Presidente Santos y el Comandante de las FARC Rodrigo Londoño, el pacto de paz renegociado. Estos dos líderes demostraron integridad al continuar comprometidos con la causa por la paz de la nación. El proceso muy fácilmente pudo haber tomado otro rumbo cuyo fin ya sabemos cuál sería- la reanudación de hostilidades en el país.

En esta ocasión, y a diferencia de la refrendación del 2 de octubre, el Acuerdo de Paz sería ratificado por el Congreso colombiano solamente. En esta ratificación se encuentra lo significativo de la segunda vuelta por la paz colombiana. La ratificación de la paz sucedió en dos votaciones, una por cada cámara del Congreso. La Cámara Alta compuesta por el Senado consiste de 102 senadores. La Cámara Baja está compuesta por 166 representantes. El Senado de Colombia ratificó la paz con una votación de 75-0. La Cámara de Representantes con una votación de 130-0. La diferencia en ambas cámaras la formaron en su mayoría las abstenciones del partido de extrema derecha Centro Democrático cuyo portavoz es el senador Álvaro Uribe. Uribe fue la voz cantante en la campaña de desinformación que en gran parte obtuvo la victoria del no el 2 de octubre.

No debemos ni podemos ignorar el peso y la fuerza social de estos dos votos del Congreso colombiano. Rara vez se hallan en cuerpos legislativos votaciones que resultan en completa unanimidad política, pero los senadores y representantes colombianos sabían que la responsabilidad moral a favor de la paz era de repercusiones históricas para un futuro seguro y próspero en Colombia. Un voto en contra de la paz colombiana era un ejercicio inmoral y una abdicación del deber patrio por el bienestar del país. Dos votos para la historia y una paz para Colombia.

Es muy posible que Colombia no vuelva a ver tal grado de unanimidad política en sus cámaras legislativas, pero como aquí se trataba de una paz estable y duradera para esta y las generaciones futuras del pueblo colombiano había que dejar un mensaje claro. Por supuesto, un voto en contra hubiese sido igual de claro. Por eso no hubieron tales votos. Obviamente, las abstenciones fueron símbolos de protesta contra el acuerdo de paz por parte de una minoría de legisladores. Fue un conveniente cálculo político para solapar su antagonismo contra el curso de la historia. Colombia, por medio de la mayoría sus legisladores, dijo claramente, “¡Ya no más guerra!”

Sí, gracias a Dios, Colombia ya tiene un Acuerdo de Paz firmado por las partes en cuestión y ratificado por los políticos del país. Sus más altos funcionarios merecen nuestro encomio por su perseverancia y compromiso con la paz. Han hecho historia y eso no es poca cosa. Pero eso no fue lo más difícil de todo este proceso. Lo más difícil es lo que viene ahora.

Le resta al gobierno y las FARC trabajar juntos en la fase de implementación del Acuerdo de Paz por el que tan arduamente trabajaron. Es aquí donde la intención se convierte en acción y las palabras se hacen carne en vez de llevárselas el viento. Que Dios le de gracia al gobierno y al pueblo colombiano para trabajar por la paz y preservarla como protagonista en el nuevo capítulo que se proponen escribir de su historia. Y que el anhelo por la paz y la justicia nunca muera en el corazón de cada colombiano. #PazParaColombia

Serás como la lluvia

Serás como la lluvia que quiere caer y cae
Subirás por las venas de la tierra
A paso lento transformándote en los troncos,
En las ramas, en las hojas, en las flores
Las aves que se fueron escucharán tu voz
Y regresarán cantando la canción que siempre se ha cantado

Libre