A Christmas minstrel playing pipe and tabor. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As I said in early December, I wish we had Christmas music throughout the year. But, just this one more time now, I am sharing Christmas music (until December).
This is a great way to prepare for a Saturday Mission project
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This blog by Scott Parrish gave me some good material as I prepare for Second Saturday Servants tomorrow. We will be sharing a meal and Bible study with God’s Kidz in the Hood this Saturday.
On Mission Devotions is the place for Kudzu Life. I liked his natural movement from Genesis 12:2-3 to John 20:21.
A section of Parrish’s blog:
For a long time people who followed God have been sent on incredible adventures. If you look over the Old Testament you’ll find it is a consistent pattern shared time and time again- Noah, Abraham, Jonah, the prophets, and others- show us that God’s ways are very, very different than our ways. If we follow God in our time and place then we are going to be a peculiar people. Jesus picks up on that long tradition of being sent as a missionary.
Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of man, was sent with a purpose. As followers of Christ, we too are sent with a purpose. That’s why you’ll sometimes read a devotional or hear a preacher speak of church folk and Christians as being a “sent people.” John 20:21 “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
I read Patrick Morley’s post in 2011 at Michael Hyatt’s Intentional Leadership blog. He says “Everyone knows we have a “men problem.” You can hear about it on CNN, read about it in the New York Times, and watch the destruction it creates on Dr. Phil.
The stats are jarring. For example, 80 percent of men are so emotionally impaired that not only are they unable to express their feelings, but they can’t even identify their feelings. The collateral damage is staggering. One-third of America’s 72 million children will go to bed tonight in a home without a biological dad. The message was moving to me then, and I have been reflecting on it again.
“But perhaps the greatest cost to the physical absence of dads is the practical absence of moms. Essentially, one person must now do the work of two. A young woman said, ‘When my mom and dad divorced, I didn’t just lose my dad. I lost my mom, too, because she had to work long hours to support us.'”
It made me reflect on some of the ministries I have pursued over the past ten years, because of my observation that there are few male role models in Sunday School classes for young children and tweens, for instance. That led me to teach 4th and 5th graders and to help with Junior Church. It led me to work on Parent’s Night Out and to help design the Seder Meal day in our worship. It led me to learn how to work with bigger varieties of youth and to “just be out there, praising God publicly.” I think I have not been as effective in this role this past year as I was in earlier years. As I have worked more in some mission work this past year, I lost some of the contacts I had with young people. I have tried to model faith and to be a good mentor, but I’m not too sure I was obvious enough!
Morley observes that we have many ministries and social programs that deal with the consequences of men failing—teenage crisis pregnancy centers, prison ministries, and rehab programs, for instance. Truly we will always need pregnancy centers and prison ministries. Unfortunately! Morey asks, “wouldn’t it be great if we could go upstream and devote some resources to help men get it right before there were “babies in the river?” Cancer treatments are essential, but how much better to prevent cancer in the first place?”
Like Morely, I am still thankful for the models and mentors who helped me over the years–men like Tom Brown and Gerry Cheske. But I wonder if a program like Morely envisions would make a difference. I am inclined to believe it will.
I’m hopeful, that my group at First Church —Learners Leaders and Relationships–may make a difference too–with young and old leaders–as we develop relationships like the one between Timothy and Paul. I am working to reconfigure this program in 2012, and pray that it will involve more youth than ever.
Living New Life
In this new world, with no fighting,
I see the gold, shining around everything, and my glasses seem like second lenses shrunken and wrinkled,
And even dads and moms here hear and see like new toddlers, strong,
Children most welcome here.
Breads and fruits and bars around our table. 
We visit unhurried,
Words fully grasped and relished,
Joints firm and pain-free,
Eyes clear and tear-free.
Dads and moms and favorite uncles, gentle aunts,
All join us casually and calmly, all time-free and unhurried.
Littlest of children, brothers long gone, friends fevered away,
Join us calmly and brightly,
Smiles bright, pain lost.
Children, unhindered, ancient ones, unburdened,
Lost ones, found in mercy,
We converse in new ways.
Music casual and vivid, musicians always present,
Love always present,
We live new.
This Good News, shared, and found,
Fearless and fear-lost,
We join each other, and love unburdened.
Blood fresh and rich, hearts clean and strong,
Organs new again, we forget the notion of pain.
Righteousness, peace and joy!
(c) Tom Bolton, 7 January, 2013, Milwaukee
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Romans 6:4 New International Version (NIV)
The Good, High Praise, and Evil Cast Down
Wrestled away from the evil, the good is for us.
not of us, but for us,
prepared by the father for the children,
good always there, wrestled from evil.
Good always needs to be won, highly praised,
Good was won for us.
Good is for us.
Good is to savor and to illumine our lives.
Good is like forgiveness; it is asked for.
Each day we ask forgiveness;
Each day we ask for good.
Good is tough; beautiful, it is shiny armor.
In the light, we see good shine and grow.
Joy to the world!
Evil cast down, works of darkness writhe in the light,
evil cast down.
The day is upon us,
each day, and
we ask:
Will you forgive us today?
Will you fill us with good?
Today, we put on an armor of light, and
God is good each day.
(c) Tom Bolton, December 28, 2012, Milwaukee
Ephesians 5:18-20 from The Message (MSG):
Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.
We Sing to New Horizons
We are singing today,
and these are spiritual songs that bind us together.
We hear the hymns and bright carols,
and our faces now are bright as we are together.
These melodies are in harmony, and
we are synchronized as spiritual brothers and sisters. 
My horizon does widen too, as it did when
I sang these hymns with my sister and mother.
Many years past, we sang together each night, and
faces glowed and spirits soared.
In those days when I was a boy, I
missed that our small band was part of this grand holy church.
Our bodies, young and smooth, strong and lithe,
We were members of the body.
Large or small, each band–each choir–sings,
a tiny part of the church, a tiny organ of the Body.
Radically in love,
we join in hymns today.
Some as nightingales, some crows, but
we sing as one.
The music lifts us high.
We are connected, loving,
our music crystal-clear today.
Diverse in our voices, we
sing to new horizons this day,
all this year.
We sing.
(C) Tom Bolton, Milwaukee, December 28, 2012
On New Year’s Eve, We Pray
Hear, listen to me, here I am again;
Hasten to me, as I am anxious tonight, as I call. 
My words should be sweet, perfumed for you,
and yet, Lord, my anxiety makes for acrid incense.
I raise my hands, and I want to fall down,
for great is my anxiety, my fears, and I cross from this year to this new year.
New Year’s Eve, and I pray for a year of Divine Connection!
Too often my mouth lets loose the wrong words;
shape my cheeks, my lips, my cleft, so that
I can ask for those things that are good.
My heart heaves and sighs, too often evil;
Lord, fill my heart, fill me with you.
New Year’s Eve, and I pray for a year of Divine Intervention.
I pray tonight to be good and kind,
to be a righteous man.
I wish, and wish again, to be a blessing,
as I am blessed, called to be present,
to walk beside those who are hungry and alone.
Too often I wonder off with those who love evil,
and they love to be with me;
put barriers between me and evil.
Even as I rush to my evils that invite me in,
I know to ask what is elusive: Pull me to you Lord.
It is the eve of a new year, and I see the
nets that I often try to snare me.
I am aware to elude them, and
Still I go toward them, lured by my evil.
On this New Year’s Eve, I lift
up those who need your divine intervention,
Those who thrive in the divine connection:
Bless our President, our legislators, our bureaucrats too.
Bless my state and those who are
entrusted to care for and lead us here.
Powerful leaders of nations we scarcely know,
bless them too Lord.
Too many friends ail, and some wander, jobless;
heal them this year in ways I cannot even imagine.
In-laws and family far-flung are dying
in ways I barely know, in ways full of pain,
and in ways memory-fogged;
connect with them this year in all your ways.
Men and women are alone, homeless, hungry
for spiritual and temporal nourishment,
blue and callous-freed, exposing weepy wounds;
fill them this year in ways ancient and new.
I am unsure of where to be and who to be;
Let me be a disciple of Jesus each day.
Put me where you will, God of Grace.
Use me as you will, God of Love.
Inspire me to pray large, Majestic God.
Bring joy to this world, God, ancient and fresh.
Keep us safe, Lord.
Not too comfortable, Lord.
(C) Tom Bolton, Milwaukee, December 29, 2012
Hopeful 