28 Day Journey-Day Twenty Two

Monday 12//26//05
22 Join

Merry Christmas. Or as my English friend said on my voicemail today, "Happy Christmas!" Oh, I know it's past midnight EST (yes, these posts actually are written in real time and not generated by a computer that auto posts while I'm asleep) and it's not actually Christmas anymore. In fact, for the Brits, it's Boxing Day, I think. Yeah, a little strange, but it's not the day they like to fight, rather (I hope I get this right) the day they box up all the stuff they got they don't like and take it back to the store. Come to think about it, there may actually be some punching involved in that after all. Anyway, the point. It's not that important to me what day Jesus was born, but that He came. And to that, I wish you all a Happy Christmas today, because He is here now. Still Emmanuel. Very much the light of the world. Living in you and me.

Ours was split between two cities again, as we always try to hit both families on Christmas Day. So we awakened to sunny, mild Houston where we had been with Shelley's family, took Delta home (sounds odd, I know, but it's really a nice day to fly) and celebrated with my family here in Atl. Lot's of family, laughter and Honey Baked Ham. Which makes me wonder what we used to do before those people came into existence. If you had a Honey Baked Ham at any point during the Christmas season can I see your hand. Yep, that's pretty much all of us. But we are back at the house now, still mesmerized by my favorite gift so far, that little 20 Questions thing that somehow deduced "braces," "sand" and "cupcake" in the first three attempts to fool it. Well, actually it answered cake and not cupcake, but given that it costs less that $20 and fits in my hand, I gave it that one, too.

But most of the questions over family meals included the familiar, "So, are you guys ready for Passion?" Briefly my mind would race to the 9,000 things that have to be done between now and a week from tonight... so I would quickly try to refocus on the sweet potato souffle or the laughter coming from the other room. Yes, there are a million details that still have to fall into place, and no, we're not exactly ready yet and will have a full week of hard work to be able launch on January 2, but it's Sunday, January 25 (technically, not so much, but we're going with the fact that it's still very dark outside), and both Christmas and Sabbath all rolled into one. So we are resting from the details and savoring the Savior, trusting that He is making us all ready for what He has in store.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) will begin the last seven days of our journey to Passion06. Your mission: get everybody you can that's going to Passion (and anyone not going who wants to pray) to join the cause. There are a bunch of you out there, but we want as many of the 18000 people who are coming as possible to be in step when we hit the city. So, call, text, IM, shout, woo, e-mail... whatever it takes, reach all your peeps. Every single one of them. And say, 268Blog.com. Meet me there. Seven days till Passion. Join the movement. Pray!

Through the day: It's still Christmas.