Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Perfect Christmas?

Photo by Adam Clark on Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

What’s your idea of the perfect Christmas? Many of us have images in our minds of what the ideal Yuletide should look like.

It usually involves a spectacular Christmas tree with enticing gifts piled beneath it. The house would be decorated with pine boughs and red bows inside, and the exterior decked out with lights. The day itself would feature a scrumptious dinner with all the fixings, and numerous home-baked desserts. Top it all off with a house full of family, friends and laughter.

There’s only one problem with this picture.

It’s awfully hard to live up to.

Perhaps you were laid off from your job just before Christmas. Or maybe you’re employed, but things are still really tight financially. You just can’t provide all the gifts that your children have been asking for, and you know they might be disappointed.

Or maybe someone in your family is going through a health crisis. It looks serious, and you’re all under a lot of stress as a result. It might be hard to feel “merry” this Christmas.

It could be that you have some fractured or broken relationships in your life. Maybe things are very tense with a certain family member. Or perhaps you’ve lost someone dear to you, and this will be the first Christmas without them. The holidays might be a lonely time for you.

There are a lot of reasons why the Christmas season might fall short of what we want it to be.

But when you think about it, the first Christmas was fraught with struggles, too. Mary and Joseph certainly didn’t have it easy.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Yes, Virginia, There Really Is A Jesus Christ!

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

If you still believe in Santa Claus, please avert your eyes from the screen right now.

I’ll wait.

For the rest of you, how old were you when you realized that there wasn’t really a Santa Claus?

Five or six? Nine or ten? Thirty?

For me, the realization came on bit by bit over the years when I was little.

First off, on the gift tags on my Christmas presents, I noticed that the “To Lori, Love Santa” inscription was written in handwriting that looked an awful lot like my Mom’s. In fact, exactly like hers. I realized that it was, in fact, my Mom’s handwriting, not Santa’s.

That was my first inkling that something was up with this whole Santa thing.

Later on, I saw a notice in the newspaper that Santa would be visiting the Eaton Centre, a major mall in downtown Toronto. I was so excited! I could get my picture taken with the real Santa!

But then I saw another ad touting Santa’s visit to another mall on the same day. At the exact same time. How could Santa be in two places at once? That seemed a bit fishy to me. It slowly dawned on me that it wasn’t really Santa, but merely regular people in Santa costumes.

As an older but wiser young person, I came to discover that a lot of people I’d thought were real were in fact fictitious. Not just Santa and the Tooth Fairy, but others as well. There isn’t even a real Betty Crocker—she’s merely a creation of advertisers.

It’s always disillusioning when you discover that something you once believed in isn’t true after all.

But how comforting it is to know that there really was a Jesus Christ.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Jam the Signal!

The tiger moth Bertholdia trigona is the only animal in nature known to jam
the echolocation of its predator
Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Bats are crafty creatures.

Being nocturnal, bats search for food at night, but their night vision is fairly poor. So instead they use echolocation, or reflected sound, to home in on insects such as moths. Their built-in sonar directs them to the precise location of the tasty morsels; then it’s just a matter of swooping in and gobbling them up.

So the bats’ prey have to be crafty as well.

Certain species of tiger moth have the ability to emit sonar of their own. As a bat is closing in, the moth emits a fusillade of ultrasonic clicks. This barrage blurs and disrupts the bat’s echolocation: the signal is essentially jammed. The baffled hunter can no longer “see” the moth, and is tricked into thinking its target has vanished. Thwarted, the hungry predator flies away, and the prey is safe.

Our little tiger moth beats its enemy at its own game.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could “jam the signal” of the enemy of our soul? If we could disrupt and counter the lies the world tells us about ourselves?

In fact, there’s a way that we can.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Lest We Forget

View from D-Day Landing Craft, June 6, 1944

Each year we mark November 11th as Remembrance Day in Canada (Veterans Day in the US).

On this special day, we remember the servicemen and -women who lost their lives to ensure the freedom we cherish so deeply today.

The numbers are staggering: it’s estimated that over 400,000 U.S. military personnel lost their lives during World War II. The US National D-Day Memorial Foundation estimates that over 4,000 Allied servicemen lost their lives on June 6, 1944 (D-Day) alone.

The fatalities during World War I are equally appalling, with close to 60,000 Canadians having lost their lives in service. The best estimate of war historians is that over 140,000 Allied soldiers lost their lives during the hellish Battle of the Somme alone in 1916 (including my great-uncle Pte. Robert John Tisdale, still in his teens).

The numbers who lost their lives in the Korean War, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and others only adds to the toll of war’s terrible cost.

But wait a minute…every sentence I just wrote contained a mistake. Did you spot it?

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Master of Disguise

What’s the best Halloween costume you’ve ever seen (or worn)?

I’m particularly fond of costumes involving puns.

Like the fellow who wore a tuxedo with the word “Sorry” pinned to his shirt and went out trick-or-treating as “a formal apology.”

Or the lady who taped a dozen photocopies of pictures of her cat to her shirt. Alert people recognized her costume as that of a “copy cat.”

A simple and clever Halloween costume involves wearing a Groucho Marx-style fake nose and glasses combo, along with a name tag that reads: “Blessing.” This makes you a “blessing in disguise”!

Did you know that Jesus occasionally appeared “in disguise”?

There were a few times after Jesus’ resurrection when His friends didn’t immediately recognize Him. It seems His identity was obscured from them temporarily.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

How’s My Driving?

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Have you seen the bumper sticker “How’s My Driving?”

Commercial vehicles often have it on their back bumper, along with a phone number to report bad driving on the part of the company’s employees.

Many companies feel that the way their drivers behave on the road reflects their firm’s values.

They don’t want wild, inconsiderate, or negligent drivers operating a vehicle with the company’s logo splashed on the sides. It would send a negative message about how the company trains them.

Similarly, when we believers go about our daily lives, our behaviour reflects the One we belong to.

For better or worse, we reflect Christ.

Oftentimes, we don’t do a great job of this…

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Cats and Dogs

Image by Chiriac Ciprian from Pixabay

When two people couldn’t be more different, we say they’re like night and day, or chalk and cheese.

Comparing people who are unalike to cats and dogs can also be apt. There are several notable differences between these species of our furry friends:

They say dog is man’s best friend. If so, then a cat is man’s strange, aloof roommate.

Owners train their dogs. Cats train their owners.

Dogs don’t mind it when you dress them in silly clothing. Cats give you murderous looks if you so much as attempt to put a hat on them.

Dogs look at their owners and think: “These people feed, shelter and love me: they must be gods!”

Cats look at their owners and think: “These people feed, shelter and love me: I must be a god!”

But perhaps cats and dogs have more in common than we might think.

They both come running when they hear the can opener. They both know who in the family has the most comfortable lap. And they both show their love by licking you and shedding their fur on you.

There are two people in the Bible, who, at first glance, couldn’t seem to be more different: Simeon and the thief on the cross. Both of their stories are found in the Book of Luke.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

How to Win at Chess

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

Let’s assume you’ve challenged the all-time, undefeated World Chess Champion to a game.

You were confident in your chess skills, and figured that you had a fair chance of winning. The challenge seemed like a good idea at the time.

As the game progresses, however, you realize you’re vastly outmatched. You severely overestimated your abilities. The champion is on course to trounce you easily.

Worse still, you’d made a rash and cocky wager. You bet everything you had that you’d win: your house, your car, all your possessions.

Now you have a horrible sinking feeling, certain that you’re about to lose everything you own.

But then the chess champion does something unexpected.

He comes over to your side of the table, picks up one of your pieces, and makes a move for you.

Then he goes back to his side of the table and makes his own move.

This pattern repeats several times. Eventually you realize what he’s doing: he’s making very shrewd moves on your behalf, employing a strategy you’d never have thought of.

It slowly dawns on you that he’s opening up a path to victory for you.

The chess champion is actually helping you win! He’s doing for you what you had no possibility of doing for yourself.

After he’s won the game for you, the champion gives you a hearty handshake and a wink. All you can do is humbly thank him with profound gratitude. If it weren’t for his gracious actions, you’d have lost everything.

What’s the spiritual lesson for us here?

To ultimately “win” at life, you need God to be on both sides of the equation.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Nick of Time

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

Do you know the feeling of relief you get when you get something important accomplished with barely a minute to spare?

Perhaps you realize at the eleventh hour that today is actually your wedding anniversary, and you haven’t yet bought a present for your spouse. But you race over to the store and manage to find the perfect gift just before they close. Crisis averted!

Or maybe you have to give a crucial presentation at work, but you’re stuck in traffic. So you take every shortcut you know and, lo and behold, you slide into the office as the clock strikes 9 AM. Your boss never knows how close you came to being late.

I imagine the thief on the cross knew this feeling.

When we speak of the “thief on the cross,” we’re referring to one of the two criminals between whom Jesus was crucified.

This is the one who said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Jesus assured him that that very day he would be with Him in Paradise.

Talk about being in the nick of time!

The thief was dying an excruciating death. He probably only had a few hours left to live. Yet even at that late hour, he professed faith in Jesus and was accepted.

His story is often given as an example of how it’s never too late to turn to God, and that’s certainly true.

But I wonder if there’s more we can glean from the account of the thief on the cross?

There’s a question that’s always niggled at me: how did he know that Jesus was indeed Lord?

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Still Water Reflects Best

Lago di Limides, Italy
Photo by Julius Silver on Pixabay

We seem to have difficulty being still these days, don’t we?

For many of us, life happens at warp speed. We’re always on the go, and have little downtime to pause and reflect on things.

But with all our constant motion, are we missing out on something?

Recently, I visited a park with a pond large enough to almost be a small lake. A slight breeze left ripples on the water, disturbing the reflection of the trees in the distance. The image on the water’s surface was wavy and impressionistic, not a true representation of the landscape nearby.

I then walked to a different part of the park where a river flowed lazily into the pond. The water was running slowly, and because it was sheltered from the breeze in this area, it was very still. The trees here were perfectly reflected in the water, giving a mirror image of their true forms.

I guess that to get the best reflection in water, stillness is the key.

Perhaps the spiritual lesson here is that if our lives are too frantic, it’s hard for us to reflect Christ.

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