Memories Of Christmas 2023

December 26, 2023December 26, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

Christmas 2023 created so many wonderful memories for me. It was a season of old traditions and new experiences blended together. We started the Christmas celebration with Christmas Eve service and communion followed by a quiet family dinner. We had shrimp with cocktail sauce and roast beef pinwheels, Eggnog and Christmas cookies, and chips with salsa and cream cheese dip as usual. But this year we added lumpia to the mix.

It was Sevy and Kristine’s first American Christmas so we blended American tradition with Philippine tradition.

Christmas Day we started the day with stuffed French toast and bacon.

For lunch I made lasagna, cole slaw and buttermilk biscuits. Kristine made more lumpia….soo good!

maja blanca….soooo good!

and lechon….sooooooooooo good!

The day was ordered around keeping Sevy on track with the Christmas plans. We knew it was time to move onto the next tradition when Sevy started climbing the walls.

Opening presents with four generations was one of yesterday’s great blessings. It is not every family that has the privilege to have four generations living under one roof.

The Christmas season has come and gone and now we are rushing headlong into the New Year. My word for 2024 is “Prepare”. I believe next year will be a year of great upheaval and change. Holding on to our hope, peace, joy and love is going to need that preparation.

THE EXTENDED FAMILY VISITS

December 22, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

It is Christmas and with Christmas comes the visits from extended family. I love these times of sharing and family memory.

Kristine’s Mom called today from Ilo Ilo and I imagine we will be hearing from Kristine’s sister n Singapore sometime this weekend. I also expect we will be chatting with Brenda from The Netherlands. And my son Joe will undoubtedly chat with his friend Bill in South Korea as well.We are a global family!

I enjoy hearing about the goings on around the world. I also love seeing family, right here at home, we don’t get to see very often. Aunt Carol and Uncle Tom stopped by this afternoon and stayed for a visit.

Usually they just pop in with a holiday bread and pop back out. Mom, Carol and Tom are the last living members of their generation in our family. Mom and Carol are the last sisters from a family of eight. Both are living with dementia and both are easily tired out. Today was a good day, though, and all three felt like visiting. So I put on a pot of coffee.

Uncle Tom pulled up a chair for Aunt Carol in the living room and we left the sisters to visit while we had our coffee around the new dining table Joe and Kristine bought me for Christmas. Mom and Aunt Carol chatted for about an hour about their grandchildren while Uncle Tom and I talked about wildlife and ancestry. The stories of the old days are some of my favorite conversations.

Our visit today reminded me that I still need to pick up some holiday breads and drop them by the cousins houses before Christmas comes. Well that’s a job for tomorrow morning. Tonight I need to do some wrapping of the Christmas presents I bought this afternoon.

WHERE ARE YOU AT IN YOUR CHRISTMAS PREPARATION?

THE GIVING SEASON

December 21, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

Today’s Wisdom From the Alpacas is…“SINCE YOU GET MORE JOY OUT OF GIVING JOY TO OTHERS, YOU SHOULD PUT A GOOD DEAL OF THOUGHT INTO THE HAPPINESS THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO GIVE.” ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

The season of giving.

is also a season of rushing. I am not sure how it happens, exactly. I go into it with the best of intentions. I plan to be ready to put “a good deal of thought” into what I am able to give. Yet every year I find myself whirling around at the last minute trying to get things ready to give in time.

I have my lists. I have my plans. But life sort of gets in the way and I never get to the place of executing those plans until just a few days before. I know what I want to get for everyone. It’s the actual getting of things that seems to be the problem.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

In the fall I actually planned to take a few days in November to do the Christmas shopping. That never happened. I ended up buying a grand total of one gift before Thanksgiving (oh and this year I did succeed in sending gifts off to The Netherlands in time for SInterklaus).

So here I am four days before Christmas just beginning the Christmas gifting process. Well it’s better than some years. I have four days not four hours….so let the shopping begin!

A DAY GIVEN TO DEATH

December 20, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

I am in the midst of a day of death. I awoke this morning and headed to church early to set up tables in our fellowship hall for a funeral reception we are having this evening. After finishing up at church I was just sitting down to put the finishing touches on my funeral sermon when I got a call from another parishioner. His wife had just passed into glory.

I experienced several moments of feeling overwhelmed. Then the still small voice of God spoke into my heart.

DEATH IS NOT THE END. IT IS A BEGINNING.

I knew this as truth. I just needed the reminder in the moment of stress. I am thankful for a God who is able to speak to me when I need speaking to.

Bolstered by the knowledge of new beginnings I went to the family, prayed with them, hugged them and did the work for which God has appointed me. Now as I sit awaiting tonight’s funeral that knowledge still holds me and will hold me through. Such knowledge can hold us all through as we face life’s greatest challenges. There is a God who loves us. He is passionate about mankind. He brings help wherever He is invited, wherever He is welcomed. In the presence of God even death becomes a doorway through which we can walk into greater blessing.

WHERE IN YOUR LIFE DO YOU NEED TO WELCOME GOD AT THIS MOMENT?

The How

December 19, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

I thought when I bought THE WISDOM OF ALPACAS, that I was buying a book of quotes on individuality. Apparently I was mistaken. It seems to be a book of quotes on happiness. Today’s quote…

“HAPPINESS IS A HOW, NOT A WHAT. A TALENT, NOT AN OBJECT.” HERMAN HESS.

I like that. In our materialistic and perfectionistic culture it is hard to remember that happiness and joy are never found in things or in circumstances.

First of all, I think joy is a gift from God that we can either access or block.

We can either receive joy or reject it.

We receive joy when we practice being thankful. Once when I was having a hard time I made myself write fifty things every day I was thankful for.

We reject joy when we complain.

We receive joy when we choose to celebrate the ebb and flow of life. This week is Christmas. I am not done my shopping yet, but I am refusing to stress about it. I will get it done and the giving is just one part of a much larger celebration. The celebration will happen whether I stress out or not. Christmas will come whether I finish my shopping or whether everything is perfect according to my definition of perfection or not. What will make me joyful or not is how much I participate in the celebration . Participation in the day… that is my choice.

Photo by Nubia Navarro (nubikini) on Pexels.com

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE JOY?

UNDER MY FEET

December 18, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

Today’s quote from The Wisdom of Alpacas is from James Oppenheim, “THE FOOLISH MAN SEEKS HAPPINESS IN THE DISTANCE, THE WISE GROWS IT UNDER HIS FEET.”

One of my personal core values is contentment. For me contentment is about learning to both accept what is and to transform even that which is not good into something useful and blessed. As a Christian I believe even the most difficult things can be redeemed. That doesn’t mean I think that everything can be fixed. Lord knows I have experienced things in my own life which could not be fixed no matter how much I wished they could be.

For me accepting the brokenness of things is the first step in contentment. The second is figuring out whether the thing can be or maybe even should be fixed.

I THINK THAT SOME THINGS SHOULDN’T BE FIXED. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The third step in contentment is discovering what good can come from the broken things of life when they are mixed with the whole things of life.

I think of contentment like baking a cake. It is taking all of life’s ingredients and making something good out of them. It is not as some people think giving up or settling for the status quo.

Paul the apostle said “godliness with contentment is great gain.” I think that is the biblical idea behind Oppenheim’s comment. I can choose to keep looking into the distance for some bit of happiness forever out of my reach or I can make my own life the source of my happiness. Contentment is one of the ways I make my own life my main source of joy.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OPPENHEIM’S COMMENT?

WHAT WOULD YOU ADD TO A CONVERSATION ON CONTENTMENT?

THOSE OPEN DOORS

December 14, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

Rose Lane said, “HAPPINESS IS SOMETHING THAT COMES INTO OUR LIVES THROUGH DOORS WE DON’T EVEN REMEMBER LEAVING OPEN.”

THIS QUOTE MALES ME THINK ABOUT LIFE’S SURPRISE MOMENTS.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Surprises….I have to admit I usually think of them as a crap shoot. You never know what you’re going to get when a surprise comes along. Usually I view surprises as holding potential problems. I am trying to change the way I think in that regard.

I am trying to ask….

WHAT’S THE POTENTIAL HERE?

WHAT IS GOD DOING IN THIS SURPRISE?

HOW DOES THIS SURPRISE ADVANCE GOD’S PURPOSE?

Maybe some day Rose Lane’s thoughts will be my first thoughts. In the meantime I am trying to recognize open doors before they surprise me with what comes through them.

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH SURPRISES.

So Much Fun

December 11, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

We just marched through the second weekend of Advent, The weekend of Peace. It was so much fun. Last week our church was honored to host our local high school for three days while the school was repaired from a malfunction with one of its hot water heaters.

This weekend we had a team come in to clean up and get ready for church on Sunday. But the church staff and school staff did such a great job of putting the church back together that the congregation was able to do a few extra jobs which have been waiting in the wings.

I had thought we would have the students with us for two weeks, so I rented this huge dumpster which the school hardly used. We used it instead to get rid of a shed full of rotten lumber we have been sitting on for a looooong time. Meanwhile a group of ladies went through out kitchen and indoor storage rooms to get rid of old and broken kitchen and ministry items.

I love cleaning out!

Another group of congregants worked in the sanctuary reattaching the chairs which had been disconnected and because it is the fourth season of the church year they also vacuumed. You know the four seasons of the church year don’t you? Spring, Summer, Fall and Glitter.

Vacuuming is not really effective against glitter but at least it gets up the sand and the salt that people carry in from the parking lot.

After the clean out Amanda and I headed over to our sister church, Bread of Life, which was hosting the Special Touch Ministry Christmas party.

It was ten years ago that Amanda and I joined twelve other people led by Mike and Kim Ferguson to start the first New England Chapter of Special Touch Ministry to the Disabled.

It is amazing to see what God has done over this last decade through this ministry!

It was even more amazing to see Mike playing King Herod for the Christmas story wearing a tiara.

While we were partying, Kristine was hard at work at home reorganizing the Vicarage kitchen.

Amanda, Melanie, Daniella and Abigail, finished off the night by attending Cornerstone’s leadership Christmas party.

It was a busy day filled with true peace.

WHAT DID YOU DO LAST WEEKEND?

NOTHING IS FREEDOM?

December 8, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 8 Comments

I am working my way through this book of quotes I got from our local library’s used book sale. The book is entitled THE WISDOM OF ALPACAS.

The theme of the book is individuality as expressed by celebrated thinkers across time. I’m not sure I celebrate this thought from AYN RAND.

“FREEDOM:TO ASK NOTHING. TO EXPECT NOTHING. TO DEPEND ON NOTHING.”

Is freedom really nothing? Is freedom even achievable? If this is freedom do I want it?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

“I Am No Bird…”

December 7, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

“I am no bird and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” Charlotte Bronte.

Last week I stopped by the local library to see what they had on offer at their used book sale.

I found several books, one of them was THE WISDOM OF ALPACAS. It’s a book of quotes about individuality. I thought the daily quotes would be useful as writing prompts for my blog here at “Notes”.

So here I sit at my dining room table on a cloudy Thursday afternoon, as the Vicarage naps (well at least Sevy and Mom are napping). I have my cup of afternoon Ginger and Yuja tea. I am sitting down to write from this first quote from the book.

Honestly sometimes I feel more like a caged bird than I do a human being with free will. My bars are not made of metal or plastic. My bars made of the flow of life and of the mindset that life is a rushing river that I can do little about.

Lately my prayers have been refocusing me around my own personal responsibility. Life may be a rushing river, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing I can do about the rushing. There are things I can choose to do each day to make my dreams come true in the midst of the rushing.

I can plan for the rushing.

I can say “no” to the rushing especially when it is someone else’s rush.

I can break my dreams down into bite sized pieces and plan to work on them a little everyday.

I find that working my plan around the prayer cycle makes the work easier somehow. I also find that if I do not make prayer the center and springboard of my plan then the plan falls apart. For me I would say prayer is the key to exercising free will in a healthy productive way so I don’t revert to my caged bird form.

WHAT IN YOUR LIFE HELPS YOU TO EXERCISE YOUR FREE WILL?

Notes From the Vicarage

A minister's family living in a micro forest garden

reality blog