Month: December 2009

(reposted from Dec. 14th, 2008)

..because I’ve seen it done oh so wrong…I figured I’d share this with the general public.
(from our friends at Wikipedia)

Gifts are wrapped, but are not labeled to reflect a specific sender or recipient. Gifts are typically inexpensive, humorous items or used items from home and sometimes, they are just plain trash; the term white elephant refers to a gift whose cost exceeds its usefulness. While the first use of this term remains an item of contention among historians, a popular theory suggests that Ezra Cornell brought the term into popular lexicon through his numerous and frequent social gatherings, dating back to as early as 1828.

All participants draw a number (from a hat, perhaps) to determine their order.

The participant with #1 unwraps any gift from the pile and then shows it to everyone. Each successive participant, in the order determined from the drawing, can either 1) “steal” an already opened gift (if there’s one they really like) or 2) be adventurous and go for a wrapped gift from the pile. If the participant chooses to steal, the person whose gift is stolen now repeats their turn and either 1) steals another person’s gift (they cannot immediately steal back the gift that was just stolen from them) or 2) unwraps a new gift.

This cycle of stealing can sometimes continue for a long time, until a new gift is chosen, at which point the turn is passed to the participant with the next number from the drawing. (An alternative to the drawing is to sit in a circle and take turns in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.)

Since items can be stolen, the item in your possession is not yours until the game is over. However, this is often amended with a rule declaring a gift “dead” or “safe” after it has been stolen a certain number of times (usually two or three). This helps the process go more smoothly (avoiding, for example, the hypothetical scenario of the same gift being stolen by every successive participant) and limits the disadvantage of being among the first to choose gifts.

(I particularly like that they created links to explain “clockwise” and “counterclockwise” 🙂 )

I’ve been chiseling through some essays in honor of Richard Shaull, who was an author and missionary largely to South America. It’s a book I purchased a long time ago on a clearance rack, and never actually read until recently I was stuck without a book for a day or two.

The essays focus on “Ecumenical Theology in Global Context“, 1998, featuring authors who approach the hope of Jesus Christ as it relates to many different disenfranchised communities around the world. It’s been a good read for sure. I’ll leave with you a few quotes from Maria Marta Aris-Paul’s essay, “Latin American & Caribbean Immigrants in the USA: The Invisible and Forgotten”.

“One of the things that confuses us when we come to this country is the notion of freedom. We confuse being free with doing only what we want. We forget about responsibility and moral principles. This is where our spirituality comes in.”

“Many go to church on Sundays, where they expect to receive spiritual comfort and where the priest is supposed to supply whatever it is that will provide that support. When a community is physically and emotionally drained from daily living, how is it going to learn to be that new model of church which requires of its members time, commitment, responsibility, and more hard work?”

“I believe that to reconstruct the church we need to have small projects. We need to gather in small groups, in mutuality, forming small communities of faith who can look at our own lives and see where the Holy dwells among us. Our small communities can have a ripple effect on the larger society.”

It began with expectation/desire for something extra-ordinary, after all, I was giving up much more than the usual time for silence. I was apart from the everyday. I wanted something of substance to take back into the week with me, an insight or experience with God that would “wow” anyone who heard. I was spending time in His creation, with the words of Psalm 40 and the Beatitudes on my mind…

It wowed me, for sure. The way that I was wowed when taking a walk with my wife when we were dating. No giant “happening”. No experience to take back and brag about. Simply, soaking in the time we were able to spend together. I walked with God. 🙂 Looking forward to more….