hokey holiday busyness

The annual coming of Christmas Day is a reminder of the "mission statement" that an infant is a gift from the creator, no matter if born in animal quarters and surrounded in poverty, too. I have many thoughts and feelings of this season or hustle and bustle, high expectations and obligatory retail excess.
 
1. Double vision: yes, there is lots of feel-good from the cozy music, treats, reunions and traveling about. But all that is _maya_ (illusion as the Buddhists say), like the dew on the grass or smoke on the wind soon gone. The more valuable view is the restatement and glorifying of the Jesus story: born in flesh amid poverty to save one and all, literally 'God with us' (Emmanu-el, EL dennoting the old name for the creator God). So let's not feel bad about the feel-good shineyness, but let's remember that it matters little, and even distracts a lot from the main story about God in your face, on the ground, amid daily living.
 
2. What would the world look like if the Jesus story and God oriented society were global and normalized: not in the sense of Official, state policy like the dopa or soma for the masses, but rather in the true, open-ended and vigilent spirit of the human-God relationship: listening for God's will, but ever inquiring. Never blind obedience, but always 'wrestling with the Word' (literally, Israe-el; where EL is the old name for the creator God). Perhaps then it would be normal to speak God's name and consult God's will or remain open to the Holy Spirit. There would be no 'cordon sanitaire' between Church and State, since all creation would be touched by God. And yet there would be no mortal glibly justifying self-righteousness for her or his personal actions and gains.
 
3. So much of the Church year and familiar routines have little connection to the basic Jesus story and personal relationship to God. Image if all the hoopla were discarded and just the central message(s) were the basis of all activity and discussion.
 
4. It seems so human-centric to insist that God privileges homo sapiens sapiens of all his creatures, and further for us to embody his power in the human form of the Christ. But as a useful life exercise, it is all right to ante up and get in the game, and to use the pieces we have been handed down by tradition and history to help us to fumble around and engage in relationship to our creator and the created world we briefly inhabit.

doubts of the season

Pageants, concerts, TV programming, carols, fancy dress in green and red themes, street and shop decorations, sweet treats and added effort of hustling for cards, postage, gifts and wrapping. It is all a much of a muchness, similar to other years and best characterized is lots of light, but little real heat: a verisimilitude or proxy of imagined well-being, or in Tiny Tim's words from A Christmas Carol, "God Bless Us, everyone." What is to doubt of the season: the haste, the preoccupation, the anxieties all distract and detract from the message. What is the message, anyway? In a word, the message is Emmanuel, God With Us. That message is the point; it should be sufficient to celebrate. So away with the rest of the dross - bah, Humbug to the busyness. Let us be still and calm, give thanks and finish with praise.

Although this tinge of gloominess has been spreading the past 2 weeks, it came into focus during the annual ballet production of The Promise yesterday: some familiar and bigger than life music to accompany the youth company production. Technically impressive, narratively recognizable of The Christmas Story, occasionally artistically in perfect synthesis of performers moving as one and focused on telling the story, rather than merely going through the motions on synch. But between gorgeous costumes, amplified music, awesome lighting changes and audience clapping intermittently for dancers' well executed points, the message for Christmas was ironically in the distant background, even as it figures as the subject of the production.

Researching World Christianity: [a database of]

Subject: [xpost H-Asia]: [a database of] Doctoral Dissertations on Mission Since 1900
URL http://resources.library.yale.edu/dissertations/ 
Yale University Library & Yale Divinity School, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

---Self-description:
"This database incorporates compilations of missions-related
dissertations published in the July 1983, July 1993, and July 2003
issues of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research
[http://www.internationalbulletin.org/], and has been expanded in its
scope. First, it includes English-language doctoral dissertations
without regard to country of origin. Secondly, rather than focusing
narrowly on missions, it also includes dissertations dealing with
Christianity outside the West. Excluded are dissertations about
Christianity in Europe, Australasia, and North America, with the
exception of aboriginal missions in those areas. Thirdly, it expands
the chronological scope to include dissertations presented since
1900. Fourth, the earlier compilations were limited to 'research'
doctorates, understood to include the Th.D. and the Ph.D.; the
present compilation includes all doctoral level dissertations and
theses that we could identify, including the D.Min. and D.Miss.

Finally, we consulted many more sources to identify theses and
dissertations than did the predecessor compilations, including
websites and published bibliographies (a bibliography of sources
consulted will be included with the database). As a result, the
number of titles identified increased from 2,371 in its three
predecessors to nearly 5,193. Updates to the database have increased
the number of titles to 6,113 as of April 2010. The creation of this
database was undertaken in collaboration with the International
Bulletin of Missionary Research, and made possible by the support of
the Overseas Ministries Study Center [http://www.omsc.org/], New
Haven, Conn.."

Site contents
[examples of keyword searches]

# MALAYSIA - details [Title, Author, Degree, Institution, Date,
Abstract, DAI Number, Country of Origin, Subject 1, Subject 2,
Subject 3, Subject 4] of the 21 located dissertations, including:
...[21] Church Structure Issues in Asian Ecumenical Thought: With
Particular Reference to Malaysia and Singapore. Yap, Kim Hao. Boston University.

# KOREA - details of the 143 located dissertations, including:
[1] The Anglican Church's missionary work in Korea 1890--1910 as
revealed in its missionary magazine 'Morning Calm' Ahn, J.M.
University of Wales.
...[5] A Historical Study of the Role of Pioneer Korean Christians in
Beginning the Indigenous Presbyterian Church and in Bible
Translation, 1876--1912. Bang, Dong Sub. Reformed Theological
Seminary.

# JAPAN - details of the 89 located dissertations, including:
[3] Social Evangel as Nationalism: A Study of the Salvation Army in Japan, 1895--1940. Baggs, Albert Edward. State University of New York
at Buffalo.
[4] Between idolatry and infidelity: The Christian missionary in Japan, 1874--1912: A case study of cross-cultural encounter with
special reference to the activities of British missionaries in Japan. Ballhatchet, H.J. University of London.
[5] Education in early Meiji Japan, 1868--1890. Bonnallie, Dorothy A. Claremont Graduate University.