I've always thought that Christmas was when we celebrate Christ giving himself to us in the Incarnation...true as it is, I never understood until this year, that Christmas is also when Christ came to receive and not just to give. God becomes man, Mystery collides with History, Spirit takes on Flesh, the King who has everything, who has need of nothing, became weak, vulnerable, and poor so that I would understand his humility and my dignity - God comes to receive which means I have something to give. The world waits for salvation and freedom but Christ was laid in a crib before he could embrace his cross. The world needs a savior, but in our great need He does not come bearing gifts, but comes looking for them.

In the Christmas story, Jesus has nothing to give. He is born in poverty and waits to receive any gift given to him. God became the least of us so that he would need the most from us. He became the least so that everyone of us would have something to give him. His mission is not just to save us from sin, but to save us for a new life, for a new way of living that restores the dignity and responsibility we all have. We are bound to one another and we are called, from the greatest to the least, to give to those who have less.

Wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in the poverty of the manger, the Christmas conspiracy is reclaiming the truth: we are not what we keep, but how we love and how we give. Christmas is about His great humility, and His humility is why Christmas is about our great dignity.

"Worship. Love. Give. Presence."

- Prepare for Christmas. Live Advent.

  "let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair" - G.K .Chesterton

In the same way, let your "marriage", "acts of service", "prayer life", "relationship", "obedience", "politics", "Mass participation", "Catholicism", "tithing", "growing in virtue", "study of the Summa", "Salvation", etc., be less of a theory and more of a love affair. 
Love affairs do not disqualify the roles, rules, responsibilities, visible structure, public and corporate nature of a love affair - it internalizes them, it makes one free from the "law" by writing them on the heart. A man in love fulfills the laws of love not because he simply "has" to, but because he wants to. Commandments become opportunities. Real Christianity is not "either / or" but "both / and". Loving Jesus means fulfilling roles, following rules, accepting responsibilities not out of fear, but out of sheer joy from beginning to end. 

Here are a few reflections on driving, division of time while driving, posture, proposing and trusting God to answer prayer. Below is a rough estimate of what I did and what I thought traveling 25 hours from Swartz Creek, MI to Pine Island, FL

"In the experience of great love, every event that happens, happens in relation to it."