On being present

I've been thinking a lot about Christmas lately. It's a strange season for me, it always has been. And lately I've been downright dismissive of it. I come to find out that it's because I never really understood it.

I realized that it's about God becoming present in our lives. And for him to become present he must have been absent for that to have much meaning. I know about absence. It's been almost two years since Dad passed now. And I'd love to hear the same old fishing stories one more time, but I won't. It's taken me this long to make peace with that.

What Christmas means to me this year is that no matter how bad it gets -- and I know it can get pretty bad -- that God comes to us without condition. He becomes present. Even if we try to dismiss him along with the rest of Christmas. I can think of no greater gift.

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas.

Days Like This

Over the Rhine "Days Like This," song by Kim Taylor website, facebook

Today's Ride

Spring in the Backyard

Sounds sooo good

iTunes samples

Band's website

My Irish roots

Far across an expansive black ocean and far back in time, George McGarr married Eliza McIntire. We seen them now as if through a telescope that searches for focus. Of course, the fact that we see them at all is simply amazing. I recently rediscovered a family document prepared by Helen McGarr Alter on McGarr ancestry.

Most of the typewritten lines on the poorly copied twelve or so pages are cut off. The pages were not numbered and I've since got them out of order. But Helen's desire to learn more about her family is clear, as are the facts that she spells out.

It seems to me that examining your family history is like looking through a window that is both frosted antique glass and mirror at the same time. The mere exercise helps me stand more firm on my own two feet and stand up a bit straighter. I'm not a disconnected modern man, but am the face of the present in a line that goes back farther than I ever thought I could see.

Though I'm sure that line goes farther back still, it is in George and Eliza McGarr that our story takes a distinct pivot. After all, it was they that decided to leave the town of Dungannon in Northern Ireland's County Tyrone and move the family line to America. Rereading the pages, with these family ancestors forming in my mind, I want to know more. Their story is my story.

In the span of one lifetime my family tree goes from the unknown landscape of Northern Ireland to Sandy Lake, Pennsylvania which is, by comparison, our own back yard. But then Helen McGarr Alter traveled to Northern Ireland many times and tells us "Northern Ireland is much like Pennsylvania with it's rolling hills and small lakes. It's an agricultural land plus some manufacturing." I can understand then why this region might have been appealing to them.

Next post: Why they left.

She Left Me for Jesus

Hayes Carll on NPR: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/24/133414287/hayes-carll-honky-tonk-prankster