It comes down to this: What story are you going to embrace? The story of the popular culture? Or THE story? What’s your new tradition for Christmas? How will you celebrate the coming of God to earth in the person of Jesus? He offered salvation and freedom. How about you? Will you share the same message or remain a slave to deadening consumption and commercialism?

What story are you going to embrace? The story of the popular culture? Or THE story? What’s your new tradition?

“All I Want for Christmas.” It’s an interesting title isn’t it? As if Christmas is about me. As if Christmas should be about what I want. Well, I suppose it depends on what one wants for Christmas. I have a hard time accepting things for Christmas that either specifically benefit me and not those around me or perpetuate a cycle of entitlement, greed, and the desire to consume. So… all I want for Christmas is for our celebration of God coming to earth to reflect the love for all people that is demonstrated in God’s self-disclosure as an act of giving. As the popular saying goes, “‘Tis better to give than to receive.”

“If anyone is looking for any last minute gift ideas” (for me or for anyone else) here is what I recommend giving. The idea is that the reception of a gift is actually centered on giving to another.

Scarf
Purchase of a hand-crafted/crocheted scarf from Kelly Smith to help our friends James and Kelly bring home the newest member of their family. Every dollar raised will be used toward adoption expenses to give one Ethiopian orphan a home. Customize your scarf by choosing your color (most colors available) and style (skinny, wide, fringe, no fringe). Skinny scarves are $15 and wide are $20. To place an order today email Kelly at: ophelia2377@hotmail.com. Sarah and I both would not only each like one but also hope that you will enter into the Smith’s story and consider supporting them financially and in prayer. Visit their blog.

Beads for Life
90% of the cost of a Beads for Life product go directly to the females in Africa who create the necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

Books from Amazon
If you are purchasing anything from Amazon.com then please link to Amazon through any of the Amazon widgets or lists located here at subversiveREFORMATION.com. Each purchase referred from subversiveREFORMATION.com earns Travis, Sarah, and Kyla a percentage of the cost which will be deposited into their adoption fund. Additionally, what better gift might there be than a book which is used for the learning and teaching about the church and the way of Jesus? You may also search Travis Keller’s Wish List using the “TEXT” tab on ssubversiveREFORMATION.com.

Manure
This green gift transforms waste into power—agricultural power. Organic manure increases crop yields and is cheaper, greener, and safer than chemical fertilizers. So, show your loved ones that you really “give a $%@#” for our planet. The gift goes directly to improve the lives of people living in poverty through OxFam America Unwrapped.

World Food Programme Feed Bag
The FEED 1 bag is a stylish, well-designed and reversible burlap and 100% organic cotton ladies’ carrying tote bag sold to help raise awareness and funds for child hunger. When you purchase a FEED 1 bag, you will guarantee that ONE child is fed in school for ONE full year through the United Nations World Food Program. To date, FEED Projects various partnerships have led to over $4 million for WFP school feeding.

ONE.org Africa Shirt
The tees are made of 100% organic African cotton and were made in Uganda. Shirts are available in both men’s and women’s sizes. ONE is a grassroots campaign and advocacy organization backed by more than 2 million people who are committed to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African policy makers and activists.

What other creative gift ideas do you have?

“Teaching Little Kyla…”
A series on Travis and Sarah’s journey of parental flubs, flaws, failures and accidental^ fortune.

The Invisible Children and Remember Nhu Clubs at MVNU are hosting an Art and Poetry awareness and fundraising event tonight (Wednesday) in the student union. Kyla will be presenting her piece of art that she and I composed this weekend. Her piece is called “Red and Yellow, Black and White” in reference to the song, “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” As we talked about “all the children of the world” and our need to show and express love to all, Kyla used her hands and fingers to paint red, yellow, and black around a cut-out of Africa that I drew, cut out, and taped to the canvas board making a white silhouette of the country where the dehumanization of children continues through militarization and exploitation. Though I cannot talk with Kyla yet about child soldiers and sexual trafficking, she can begin to understand that love and kindness for all of humanity. Eventually, she’ll hear their stories.

We are incapable to loving absent from relationship. We are incapable of relationship absent from the context of story. We have to learn about each other. We have to be aware of the formative life experiences that make us who we are both individually and as a collective group of people in a global community.

The world is our canvas. May we cover it with strokes of love.

^ There is someone(s) greater than me/us (a divine being and a community of people) that intercede with grace and giving.

Do you like music? Do you like orphans? Admittedly, the second question is awkward. Awkward and real. Awkward even in three senses: 1.) Most people reading this blog probably do not like the fact that any child would be orphaned; 2) The term and idea of “orphan” is not the core identity of any child; and 3) Questioning one’s commitment or lack of commitment to acting on behalf of the fatherless may create some discomfort and/or conviction.

Two students at MVNU approached me last year with the idea to do a benefit concert as a social event in order to raise money for resources needed at an orphanage in Brasil. I said “do it.” The short version of the story is that they did do it and they are doing it again. Please visit the Extended Melody Project (EMP) page and become a Fan on Facebook. EMP will be held at Ibiza 33 in Mount Vernon, OH on Friday, October 30. (4) or (5) bands will be playing and all funds from admission and t-shirt / concession sales will be donated to an orphanage in Cambodia.

The church is being the church.

Anyone want to sponsor the event? Any creative ideas?

Informational video to be posted after editing and processing finalized. Updates to our adoption page will be posted soon as well.

In a communicative speech given only minutes ago this first day of June, two-thousand nine anno domini, the United States empire’s president Barack Obama stated the government’s defense for the bankruptcy filing by the automobile manufacturer, General Motors. Evident by the majority shares purchase, Obama, his automotive task force, and the Department of the Treasury support the bankruptcy and the suppossed coming rise of a "new, leaner and stronger GM." Obama remarked toward the end of his address that the ultimate end is for American business to compete globally.

So…

If U.S. businesses are intended to "compete globally" then is the U.S. government ultimately seeking to send people who function within the economic system of another nation into the same type of jobless recession that the U.S. is currently experiencing? Is the drive to compete in business fueled by the longing for self-absorbtion, self-fulfillment, and self-gratification while promoting oppression of others? There are those who think that the people of the U.S. "deserve to be on top." Does such a philosophy reveal an ever-present racism?

What ever happened to loyalty? To friendship? To mutual respect and sharing? Why do our lives center around having more and being the best? What ever happened to Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream? Did that only apply to Americans?

And while I’m at it, why are we so dependent on automobiles?

Competition is violent. Just ask the gladiators in the Colosseum. Ask the guards on the offensive line. Ask the economically oppressed nations.

“Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.”
Henri Nouwen

Disconnect

in a pink shirt the reporter speaks
his voice ripe with excitement while
behind him the Wave crashes over
and over the same bodies flung
like broken sticks which in an instant
they have become bundled into
body bags bulging on the shredded sand
though when we return we’ll hear
from one survivor in a wheelchair
whom we glimpse smiling as the scene
shifts to a woman waltzing across
her kitchen dazzles as she holds high
a ziplock bag not large enough for bodies
no but fruit she says stays fresh for days.

Sarah Rossiter
Published in Christian Century, May 29, 2007