Here are some recent everyday photos from the Voller way of life. 🙂

Playground fun on a sunny winter day!

Aiden in Daddy’s slippers

I love sunsets.

Myles hanging with us on the porch

Myles enjoying the sunny weather

Aiden and J at the restaurant this past weekend. 🙂

Morning Fog that slowed me down enough on my commute to give me time for a picture.

Allyson gardening on our sunny weekend

This is the view from our front room where I’m currently sitting. I love this quiet view with the solitary amaryllis, the stark outline of the trees, and the neighbor’s picturesque home.

Well, Jules, you said I should do one in cursive! 🙂  Clearly I’m going to have to get better at taking and editing the photos of these pages! Click the image for a non-squeezed view! Enjoy!

The Christmas rants of Christians need to “go beyond.” Going beyond means we look past the inherent faults and injustices in our everyday lives. We look past them in order to provide not just alternative behavior, but sound reasoning and, more importantly, scriptural underpinnings that show the true meaning or purpose behind the rants. That purpose and meaning leads to the counter-cultural behavior we want to see in our lives.

Recently, my wife and I were listening to her Christmas mix as we drove. Along came a song called “The Rebel Jesus.” As I listened to the end of the refrain, “…and the birth of the rebel Jesus…,” I was struck at how infrequently we sing this theme during Christmas season. What a great truth, though… the Rebel Jesus! He was counter-cultural, he questioned not only the behavior but the motivations of leaders in his time.

We are enamored with that image of Christ, turning over tables in the temple, calling the Pharisees a “brood of vipers,” and sternly reprimanding his own parents, “Where did you expect to find me if not in my father’s house?” We are also convicted that there is a great deal of *stuff* in our lives that simply needs to go. Sin. Our conviction, at least I think in many cases, if we are writers, bloggers, leaders, etc., leads to a desire to share what we have discovered in ourselves.

Out of a sense of obligation, we want to share the lessons we’ve learned so that others can avoid making the same mistakes we made. Instantly, we have this desire to teach someone else, hoping to turn our loss into someone else’s gain, hoping that they can get wisdom from us and avoid peril in their own lives.

This has lead me to share things much too quickly in the past. I make a mistake, I suffer the consequences, and then I immediately go on a teaching/preaching binge, thinking that I need to get the message out, that there is an urgency to it. Now, I’m not suggesting that is never the case, but I do think waiting, meditating on the truth, and examining my own heart before God, IN TIME, will lead me to a more solid wisdom and a greater ability to share with clarity what I have learned… IF I really need to.

Where am I going with all of this? I read a blog post the other day by a pastor’s wife. She was preaching against the commercialization of Christmas, and offered many alternative means by which to enjoy the season and minimize the harmful effects of the secular holiday season. There was a lot of really good stuff in what she said. There was some convicting stuff in there, too. She was fed up with doing Christmas the way it has always been done and the way that Murikah celebrates it. There’s too much gift-giving, there’s not enough of Jesus, and if he came in such humility how can we celebrate with so much excess?

I agreed with everything she said, and I’ve felt those emotions, too. I’ve raged inwardly at how little I think of my savior and how I long to be closer to him, to give up on worldly desires and superficial commitments.

But something was missing. In all of her ranting and all of her rage, there wasn’t a single verse from the Bible. Not one. There was no call from the scriptures to simplicity and sharing. There was no biblical mandate for losing everything in order to keep our souls. There were vague reference to the fact that Jesus came humbly and we should live humbly, but nothing from the Bible to back up her teaching. That vacancy left a void in my heart, because it reminded me of all the times that I get angry at something and shake my fist, even with righteous indignation, and forget about the Word of God.

Why is it imperative that we return to the Word of God and keep it in these types of conversations? I think it’s a bit like 1 Cor. 13 and the “love passage.” If we speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love… we are only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Yikes. If we blog with prosaic perfection and preach with wordy mastery, but have not scripture, we are dogs without teeth, dull blades, fireless dragons.

Should we try to reduce the clutter in our lives at Christmas time? Yes, of course. Why? Because “Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.” (1 Tim 6:6-7 NIV84). Because, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matt 16:26 NIV84) We should reduce, reuse, recycle because we are an example to others in stewardship, and as witnesses to Christ we cannot simply waste what we’ve been given, because we above all understand the Giver and the gifts he gives, since we “…are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.” (Matt 5:14-15 NIV84).

“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Matt 8:20 NIV84) If the Son of Man came and had nowhere to call home, should we live lives of extravagance and excess of material possessions? They are a snare! We ought not claim to follow the lowly child of Bethlehem and at the same time make such a grand effort at going overboard on material things. We should make every effort to live like Christ!

These and other scriptures have been coming to my mind, lately, as I ponder the arrival of Jesus to this earth. It is an incredible thought, beyond belief, and nearly insane that God’s one and only son should come to earth as mortal and die on a cross, not to mention all the things in between. So I would encourage you, if you’re out there teaching, blogging, writing or leading, to go beyond the rant and bring those under your care back to the scriptures. Your voice may be a good one, but the voice of God is better.

Why? Because, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” (Matt 4:4 NIV84)

To simplify and not overspend at Christmas, the Vollers pick names and each adult buys for one other adult. The adults retain the right to buy small gifts for nephews and nieces.

In our home we also try to spread out gifts we are personally buying for our son. Just as we spread throughout the season thoughts of Christ and his advent, thinking daily on God’s gift to us, we give a gift per week or so in order to avoid gift-gluttony on Christmas day. Helps preserve the grand themes of the season and to minimize Christmas day madness.

Why write? I mean, thousands and millions have done it before. What’s the point? Who really cares what I might have to say, and what does it really matter if I do or if I don’t? Do I really have something to say in the midst of the monotonous cacophony of authors that exist today? 

“There is nothing new under the sun.” Everything that can be said has been said before and is being said now and will be said again. Right? So why even start? Add my voice to the noise? Throw my two cents in on top of the billions of pennies already in the pile? On some level it doesn’t even seem worth it. 

Should I have a goal if I write? Is writing a calling? Once you put something out there in black and white, it’s there for the whole world to see, it’s right there and anyone can say something about it. Do I want that? Is that providing value for humanity in some way? “Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.” I think it wearies the mind, as well. 

Television portrays the schizophrenic hearing voices in  his head, committing acts of violence to somehow deaden the sound. In the end, it would be better for all of us if he just killed himself instead of butchering others. So, why should I lend my words to this mess? What will it gain? Who will it benefit? Won’t I just be one among millions or billions? And yet, here I am, writing about it. Writing about writing. That’s not even a new idea. 

But I don’t know any other way to explore the possibilities of the idea. If I just talk it out, I can’t go back and listen to it (well, if I just got a voice recorder, I suppose I could). Writing it down changes it, gives it teeth, makes it permanent. Again, who cares? Writers have been writing about writing and wrestling with it for centuries. What makes me different? What makes me the same? What makes me think there is anything of value that can come from these fingers? 

This world has too many words already, doesn’t it? And, yet, that is Christ. He is the Word. Wow, what a choice. Gazillions of words have been spoken over time, and here goes God, bringing his Son down to us, and calling him the Word made flesh. He was the Word and he made his dwelling among us. The Word. Now it’s like no other words matter. But they do, because he gave men more words, important words, Bible words. So now we need to pay attention. Out of all the words in the world, could there be any as important as those? 

If God was here and he spoke, shouldn’t we listen, read, re-read the things he said? Shouldn’t they be worth passing on, the ideas that are born in words from God? Ideas! How can I form an idea without words? How can I even think without words? Can I? Is there any way to think a thought without language? Can I remember things without language? If I don’t know how to read, write, or speak, can I even communicate? 

What does it matter if my writing matters? Maybe the desire to write is in itself a good desire, a noble desire, a worthy pursuit. Perhaps communication of any kind – in word, song, picture – is simply the way we are, the way we have been designed. Possibly, if I don’t write, I am denying the very essence of something. If my writing doesn’t matter, then why should my speaking matter, or my singing, or my embrace or my kiss? Maybe I should just stop trying to communicate altogether, if that’s the way I feel about it. Or maybe I should embrace it and work with it, let it work itself out through me. Maybe it’s bigger than me.

I’m not sure I’ve reached a conclusion on the matter. More hot air. What if it’s about more than whether or not to write? What if they question is less about if I should write and more about the content of my writing? If writing is more or less obligatory, perhaps I need to change the question. What should I write about? Where should I go with this writing? Who should I convince to read my writing? I wonder who has written about writing that I could write about reading.  

In a world where a single phrase constitutes news, it seems at least a bit discouraging to attempt writing. Words are so fleeting a phenomenon in this time. Why should I cast my words upon the waters of this tide? It is a tide that changes far more often than the seas’.