A Battle Over the Spirit of Christmas

Saturday, November 12, 2005

(7:36am) Collette had been outside, shivering between OLeif and Rose at the coffee house, Rose bundled in Joe’s white and green shamrock hoodie, while Magnus and Molly argued over the spirit of Christmas, when she saw it – two shooting stars. They were gold, and very close to the earth, it seemed. Perhaps she had not seen it correctly, but Joe saw it too.

“Maybe they were fireworks,” Rose suggested, while Magnus and Molly continued to argue.

Meanwhile, Joe had also succumbed to a deviant art site, as had Molly, OLeif, Magnus, and Rose. And he had just posted a picture of a tree outside his room, commenting:

“When I was 5 years old I would look out my window and see this tree at night. I thought that the different leaf formations were angry eyes looking at me and wanted to eat me and turn me into tree sap. After I took biology I learned that only pine trees make sap so my fears were gone.”

What a goof.

It was John Piper they were listening to that morning, as they prepared to leave. Do not be sleep-walking, he said, but put on the armor of light, put on the Lord Jesus Christ in waiting for His return. Oh, the day…

[In a letter to his friend on his eightieth birthday]:

“Every ache of your 80 year-old body is groaning towards our Lord Jesus Christ.”

— John Piper